The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - May 1, 2024

Starting point is 00:00:00 Howdy folks, today is Wednesday, May 1st, and you're listening to the Texans Daily Rundown. I'm the Texans Assistant Editor Rob Lausches, and here is the rundown of today's news in Texas politics. The University of Texas at Austin pro-Palestine protests have carried into another week, with more information being revealed about the extent to which non-students have been involved, weapons have been seized, and off-campus demonstrations have been held. Although Tuesday's South Lawn appeared calm in comparison to last week, Monday's protests at UT Austin resulted in over 79 arrests. Of those arrested Monday, it has been reported that 45 are not students at UT Austin. Travis County Attorney Delia Garza confirmed that 79 individuals had been arrested,

Starting point is 00:00:54 adding that her office has received 65 cases for criminal trespass. Late Tuesday night, it was also reported that a group of protesters had gathered outside UT President Jay Hartzell's home. UT Austin issued a statement following Monday's protests, saying that, quote, weapons have been confiscated in the form of guns, buckets of large rocks, bricks, steel-enforced wood planks, mallets, and chains. The statement goes on to explain that staff have faced physical assaults, police officers have been headbutted and struck with horse manure, and police vehicles have been subject to slashed tires. Residents of the state's most populous county have an opportunity to exert more influence

Starting point is 00:01:36 over an obscure entity that determines the taxable value of property. But at the close of early voting on Tuesday, fewer than 2% of registered voters had yet weighed in on choosing new board members for the Harris County Appraisal District. Due to a constitutional amendment approved by Texas voters last November designed to lower property taxes, counties with a population greater than 75,000 will have their appraisal district boards of directors increased by three members, who will be elected by voters to staggered four-year terms. The first group of directors chosen by voters in the May 4 election will serve abbreviated terms of just two and a half years before facing another nonpartisan election in November 2026. The constitutional amendment setting the elections stems from Senate Bill 2, authored by

Starting point is 00:02:26 State Senator Paul Betancourt. Passed unanimously in the Senate and only opposed by four Democratic members in the House, the bipartisan bill aimed at reducing the property tax burden, bolstered homestead exemptions, added temporary appraisal caps, and enacted appraisal board reforms for 50 counties across the state meeting the population threshold. North Texas voters will decide on over $2.6 billion worth of school bond proposals on May 4, 2024. One of the largest is Argyle ISD, proposing a $511 million bond broken up into three propositions. The district is in Denton County and has an enrollment of 5,400 students. Argyle ISD projects that its enrollment will surpass 10,000 students within 10 years. The district previously passed a $267 million bond in

Starting point is 00:03:22 2022. Several other North Texas districts have bond proposals on the May 4th ballot. Everman ISD has a $67 million proposal, Castleberry ISD has a $98 million proposal, Grapevine-Colleyville ISD has a $150 million proposal, Granbury ISD has a $161 million proposal, and Mansfield ISD has a $777 million proposal. Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex school districts passed close to $6 billion in school bonds in the November 2023 election. New data from the Texas Education Agency revealing the salaries of public school superintendents has stirred the pot among Texas taxpayers. Records provided by the TEA for the 2023-2024 school year

Starting point is 00:04:13 indicate that being a Texas public school superintendent can be quite lucrative. A total of 70 superintendents received calculated full FTE, or full-time equivalent, pay exceeding $300,000, with the highest salary surpassing $500,000. Some expressed concern online, questioning the cause for public school administrators' earnings overshadowing that of their employed teachers by approximately 10 times. The highest reported compensation went to former Cypress Fairbanks ISD Superintendent John Henry for the 2023-2024 school year, totaling $536,775. Following closely was Barbers Hill ISD Superintendent Gregory Poole, with a calculated salary of $477,213 for the same year. According to the TEA's data, eight Texas public school superintendents employed by districts such as Kline ISD,

Starting point is 00:05:14 Kipp Texas Public Schools, Lake Travis ISD, Tomball ISD, Garland ISD, Isleta ISD, Barbers Hill ISD, and Cypress Fairbanks ISD are making more money than the President of the United States. Thanks for listening. Be sure to visit thetexan.news and subscribe to get full access to all of our articles, newsletters, and podcasts.

Your Ad Here

The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - May 1, 2024

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.