[Excerpt]

State Lawmakers Discuss Bringing Back Tax Incentive Program for School Districts, KVUE [pdf]

Clock is Ticking on Texas' Chapter 313 Incentives -- and Major Projects May Miss Out, Austin Business Journal [pdf]

In meetings with Hays County Commissioners, Corridor Interfaith leaders in Central Texas emphasized the importance of workforce development in one of the fastest growing counties in the county.  The Commissioners Court responded, increasing its public investment in long-term job training by 10% to $55,0000 in the upcoming fiscal year.  

Capital IDEA graduate Mary Helen testified, saying: "After working as a paramedic... I went back to college and earned my RN degree. I currently work as an ICU nurse at Ascension Seton Network and provided care to the first COVID patients in our region."

[Excerpt]

A section of the Texas tax code that is used by local governments as lucre to attract corporate relocations but that often ends up pitting city against city and school district against school district is set to expire.

Based on hearings last week, there will likely be calls to reinstate it in the next Legislature. That would be a mistake....

In 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott complained that each job created by this program cost taxpayers $341,000. Using Abbott’s calculation, the Houston Chronicle updated the numbers last year: now every job created by a 313 incentive costs $1.1 million, the paper reported.

What’s more, a 2018 study by the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research found that 313 incentives were the deciding factor in fewer than 25% of relocations, meaning three quarters of the time, the relocation would have happened anyway. Taxing districts are leaving money on the table and cities are fighting cities in a game that actually hurts their residents and students....

in many cases, the choice is not between attracting a company to Texas or failing to do so. The choice is between attracting a company to Taylor or Round Rock; Sherman or Plano.

That highlights another problem: 313 favors districts where it’s easiest to acquire land and build facilities. In an analysis by Dallas Area Interfaith, the losers under 313 are large, urban school districts like Dallas ISD.

[Graphic: Dallas Morning News]

Sapped by Subsidies: 313 Deals Hurt Texas Cities, Dallas Morning News [pdf]

[Excerpt from San Antonio Report]

U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh heaped praise on San Antonio’s city government for its expansive workforce development program, often called the largest of its kind in the country.  He said he wishes the federal government could do more.

At a roundtable discussion with local industry leaders and city officials Monday, Walsh called SA Ready to Work — the city’s $230 million program aiming to train thousands of low-wage workers for middle-class careers over the next five years — innovative and exemplary for its heavy collaboration with industry leaders.....

SA Ready to Work opened for enrollment in May, though many pre-registered. In the nearly four months since then, slightly more than 5,400 applicants have signed up — nearly fulfilling what the city anticipated to be enrollment through its entire first year.

Outpacing both contractors so far is Project Quest, the jobs training nonprofit that [like SA Ready to Work] sprang out of COPS/Metro.  Project Quest is managing the cases of 112 participants.

[Photo Credit: Alamo Colleges]

Labor Secretary Would Like to See Bigger Federal Investments in Ready to Work, San Antonio Report [pdf]

U.S. Secretary of Labor visits the Alamo Colleges District, Alamo Colleges District [pdf]

[Excerpt from Texas Observer]

Come December 31, 2022, the law that had allowed [major corporations] to keep more than $10 billion in school property tax revenue off the ledgers over two decades will be no more. But companies wasted little time grieving. There was still plenty of life to live after the session ended sine die. 

Since then, companies have applied for close to 500 tax break deals for projects all over the state—for everything from wind and solar farms, oil and gas processing, carbon capture, and biodiesel production. By comparison, the Texas comptroller received an average of 90 applications annually in the past decade. 

“It’s like hogs at the trough,” said Bishop John Ogletree, a leader with the Houston chapter of the [Texas] Industrial Areas Foundation, a faith-based coalition that helped bring down Chapter 313. “Multi-billion-dollar oil, gas, and tech corporations asking for school districts and taxpayer dollars to bolster their profits. If these applications get approved, it will blow a hole in our state and school district budgets for a generation to come.”

Unsure whether the state will revive or replace the program in the 2023 session, companies have grown increasingly aggressive in trying to lock in future tax breaks for speculative projects that may—or may not—come to fruition many years out. 

[Photo Credit: NonProfit Quarterly]

Money for Nothing and Your Chips Are Free, Texas Observer

No More Hogs at the Trough-Containing Corporate Subsidies in Texas, Nonprofit Quarterly

The Sun is Setting on Chapter 313 Incentives, Austin Business Journal

Companies Lining Up for Future Tax Breaks as Texas Incentive Program Nears End, Dallas Morning News

What Could Epic Samsung Expansion Mean for Texas?, Austin Business Journal

Point Isabel School District Rejects Texas LNG Tax Abatement, Brownsville Herald

'Smoke and Mirrors' or Long-Range Planning? Possible Samsung Tax Breaks Stir Debate, Austin American Statesman

Report: Samsung Adding Land to $17B Semi-conductor Campus in Taylor, Considering 11 New Facilities, KVUE

State Sees Rush of Tax Break Applications as Program Soft Deadline Approaches, KVUE

Friends of the Land, Bastrop Interfaith, Oppose Dogwood Creek Solar 313 Application to Elgin ISD, Elgin Courier

Austin ISD Moves Forward With Semi-Conductors Agreement, Faces Community Opposition, Community Impact 

Austin ISD Considering Proposal That Would Help Lower Recapture Payments, Faces Opposition, CBS Austin 

NXP Seeking Up To $140 Million in Tax Breaks for School Districts, Austin-American Statesman 

Chapter 313 Incentives: What They Are and Why They're Suddenly the Talk of the Town, Austin Business Journal 

Oped: Don't Ask Texas Schoolchildren to Fund Your Corporate Expansion, Austin Chronicle 

Statement on Austin ISD and Round Rock ISD Chapter 313 Votes, Central Texas Interfaith

Samsung Ask Texas Taxpayers To Foot $4.8 Billion Bill For Future School Taxes. Governor Abbott Endorses Biggest Corporate Welfare Deal in Texas History, Central Texas Interfaith

Last year Texas IAF organizations led the charge to end Chapter 313, a program that had given away $10 billion in windfall tax breaks for corporations. However, hundreds of Chapter 313 applications are being filed in the rush to get in before the end of the program, including some with projects slated for decades from now. 

[Excerpts]

“It’s like hogs at the trough,” said Bishop John Ogletree, an official with the faith-based Texas Industrial Areas Foundation, which has opposed the arrangements.

The Chapter 313 deals — named for their location in the state tax code — let companies slash 10 years worth of school property tax bills they otherwise would owe on newly constructed factories and energy projects.

Over the past decade the state comptroller’s office has received an average of about 90 applications annually from companies seeking the subsidy.

Since the Legislature adjourned at the end of May 2021, by comparison, records show companies have filed requests for more than 460 new tax breaks — about 400 in the past five months alone.

Typically, companies sought Chapter 313 tax breaks for projects two to four years in the future, with the occasional oil and gas facility taking six or seven years to complete. Since last May, however, companies have applied for 120 of the subsidies for facilities not scheduled to open until at least 2028. At least 10 won’t be online for a decade or more.

Despite the program’s demise, applicants “have figured out how to extend it,” said Rev. Minerva Camarena-Skeith, of Central Texas Interfaith.

Their strategy seems to be, “Just in case, let’s get 10 years of requests in in one year,” added Bob Fleming, of The Metropolitan Organization, the Houston branch of the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation. “I don’t know anybody who can forecast their needs 30 years out.”

....by slow-walking the end of a program they said was giving away too much money to corporations at the expense of Texas taxpayers, legislators have now put the state on the hook for billions of additional tax breaks that Texans will be paying off well into the middle of the century.

[Photo Credit: Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle]

Lawmakers Killed a Costly Corporate Tax Break Program, but Loopholes Will Still Cost Texas Billions, Houston Chronicle [pdf]

The Network of Texas IAF Organizations (NTO) calls on school district and superintendents across the state to reject the spate of Chapter 313 applications for corporate tax breaks submitted in the past few months.  Chapter 313 was not reauthorized in the 2021 Texas Legislative Session due to opposition by the Texas IAF, allies, and a bipartisan group of legislators. However, the current program does not expire until December of 2022, leading to a record number of over 155 Chapter 313 tax break applications (and counting) to local school districts just this year. For example, on May 24^th, the night of the Uvalde school shooting, Samsung Electronics alone pushed through eleven Chapter 313 applications in Manor and Taylor ISD for projects they don’t even have planned yet. 

“It’s like hogs at the trough,” said Bishop John Ogletree a leader with The Metropolitan Organization-IAF in Houston. “Multi-billion dollar oil, gas, and tech corporations asking for school district and taxpayer dollars to bolster their profits. If these applications get approved, it will blow a hole in our state and school district budgets for a generation to come.”

Chapter 313 allows local school boards to grant 10-year tax abatements to major energy and manufacturing companies. The State makes up for the lost revenue to the school district at a rate of 1 to 2 Billion dollars a year, money which could have gone to all school districts.  According to Texas IAF analysis, 95% of students are in school districts which lose potential money because of Chapter 313. For example, Houston ISD loses a potential $28 Million, Dallas ISD $20Million, and Austin ISD $10Million in potential funding.

Texas IAF Calls on Texas Schools to Reject All Chapter 313 Applications in the Failed Program's Final Days [pdf]

Words, thoughts and prayers are not enough to address the gruesome murder scene at yet another school shooting. 

Uvalde, Buffalo, El Paso, Santa Fe, Fort Hood, Sandy Hook, plus 26 other schools and 200 other mass shootings just this year.  Our state leaders’ ongoing catering to the gun lobby, with periodic “heartfelt” platitudes of sadness, is leading our state into a death spiral.  This is idolatry of the semi-automatic weapon.

We must resist becoming numb to the slaughter of our children and families.  Action is the only appropriate response. 

In the words of Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio, “People are dying! We have made guns our idols, they are sacred to the point that we don’t take measures to help avoid these situations. It’s horrible. It’s a systemic problem. So, when we say that we are respecting life, how are we going to do it in this field?” 

There are measures we can take to help prevent this carnage. But after the shootings in El Paso, Texas legislators passed six state laws that expanded access to guns. 

Rabbi David Lyon of Congregation Beth Israel reminds us of the scriptural mandate: “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor bleeds. It is our higher calling to be responsible for one another.”  

We must become a state where mass shootings are a relic of the past. 

The Texas Industrial Areas Foundation, a network of churches, non-profits, unions, foundations, and neighborhoods, publicly commits to build the power we need to make this world a reality. Our commitment is to engage communities, leaders, and elected officials around policy changes for safer communities. Texas IAF calls on the legislature to pass concrete legislation that will prevent further carnage at our schools, churches and communities. 

We cannot afford another tragedy.

The time to act is now.

The Network of Texas IAF Organizations are non-partisan, institutionally based community organizations whose purpose is to train leaders to organize families around issues which affect their quality of life. The network includes Communities Organized for Public Service and The Metro Alliance  in San Antonio, The Border Organization, Valley Interfaith in the Rio Grande Valley; TMO in Houston; EPISO and Border Interfaith In El Paso; Central Texas Interfaith; Dallas Area Interfaith; AMOS- Arlington, and the West Texas Organizing Strategy.

Executive Director Michelle Paul explains how Capital IDEA Houston transforms lives.  Capital IDEA Houston is a long-term job training program established by TMO.  

Following an opposition campaign by Texas IAF organizations, Comptroller Glenn Hegar is backing away from his proposal to gut Chapter 313 reporting and accountability requirements in the program’s final year of existence. Hegar signaled the change Friday after significant pushback by Chapter 313 critics, including a press conference held by Texas IAF organizations in December, and a barrage of public comments submitted to his office against the proposal, with the largest portion coming from Texas IAF leaders.

During the 2021 Legislative Session, the Texas IAF, along with allies, stopped the reauthorization of Chapter 313, the State’s largest corporate tax subsidy program. Though the current program, which costs taxpayers $1-2 Billion per year, is set to expire in December of 2022, Comptroller Hegar had proposed in November to reduce the reporting requirements on jobs, wages, and overall costs to taxpayers.

“Comptroller Hegar has recognized the voices of voters from across the political spectrum, including our organizations, and now says the data we are concerned will continue to be available,” said Bob Fleming, a leader with The Metropolitan Organization, the IAF affiliate in Houston. “However, we remain vigilant because he says the rules will still be revised and made ‘more efficient’. Given the history of this failed and discontinued program, we need even more transparency and accountability, not less.”

[Photo Credit: Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle]

After Backlash, Texas Comptroller Abandons Plan to Hide Details of Controversial Tax Break Program, Houston Chronicle [pdf]

Network of Texas IAF Organizations, Press Release