West Texas schools seeing “windfall” from sustainable energy

An iPad for every student

Jay Blazek Crossley, Nov 15, 11.

Some West Texas school districts brokered deals with wind power companies resulting in revenues that are paying for new buildings, sports venues, large scholarship funds, and even - in one ISD - an iPad for every student, according to the Texas Tribune.

The “windfall” accrues from Chapter 313 Agreements that allowed companies to pay greatly reduced taxes in exchange for payments to schools, as explained by the Tribune:

The money comes from a Chapter 313 agreement, which allows districts to offer breaks on property taxes for select manufacturing, technology and renewable-energy projects as part of the Texas Economic Development Act, which the Legislature passed in 2001. The law allowed districts to cap property appraisals so that businesses paid taxes on less than the full value of the property while the state largely offsets their resulting revenue loss.

“What I wanted is, if you grew up in a town of 350 people in West Texas, that should not work against you…”
For example, in Roscoe, just up the road from Blackwell, a wind company pays taxes on $10 million instead of on the property’s 2009 total estimated value of $378 million.

According to a 2010 report from the state comptroller’s office, 65 percent of those agreements are with renewable-energy companies, mostly wind farms. In 2009, the Legislature closed a loophole that allowed districts to negotiate unlimited side deals in which they received direct cash payments in lieu of taxes based on the savings companies received from the state economic incentives.

The side deals — and the inequity they perpetuated — led to a public outcry, and now such agreements are held to about $100 per student each year. To put that in perspective, school districts across the state spend an average of $8,572 to educate a student, according to a Texas Education Agency spokeswoman.

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