CHANGING BISD, PI ISD BOUNDARIES SEEMS LIKE A NO-BRAINER

By Juan Montoya

Sometime back, when State Senator Morgan LaMantia was courting political support, she was told of a possible solution to the chronic economic condition of cash-poor Brownsville Independent School District in contrast to its tax-wealthy neighbor the Point Isabel Independent School District.

Look at the map above closely.

It depicts the southwesternmost boundaries of the Point Isabel ISD. The BISD's eastern boundaries lie across the red boundary line along Highway 48 to the west all the way to San Pedro along the Rio Grande.

The PI ISD district stretches from the northern reaches of South Padre Island, covers Laguna Vista, and then runs west along State Highway 48, takes in all of the Port of Brownsville, then south along the Rio Grande to Boca Chica beach. SpaceX now lies within its boundaries. SpaceX property taxes will go to PI ISD. The district gave SpaceX an incentive to build. The district will not tax the company for anything more than $20 million during the next 10 years.

“It’s good incentive for the company to locate in South Texas. At the same time, it provides the school district the opportunity to increase tax revue on property that was completely undeveloped,” then- PI ISD Superintendent Dr. Lisa Garcia said at the time. The school district estimates they will net about $5 million during the next 10 years. Half of that will go back to the state as part of the re-capture or Robin Hood plan.

It is a huge district. For as long as anyone can remember, a bus from PI ISD was sent daily to pick up a lone student on the Boca Chica beach side of the ship channel.

What if the PI ISD and the BISD  agreed to letting the BISD extend its boundaries as far as the Jaime Zapata Boat ramp? The PI ISD would lose the tax income from the industry at the Port of Brownsville, SpaceX, and the agricultural taxes south of the ship channel, but it would still have to pitch in to the state's Robin Hood fund (Recapture) because of the tax income it gets from the properties on South Padre Island, even with its lower tax rate. Why not keep those monies here and help out your cash-strapped neighbor?

LaMantia said her staff that was supposedly "studying" the problem never got back to us. Will newly-elected Texas District 27 Senator-elect Adam Hinojosa address this issue?

In fact, the PI ISD has to pitch in some $20 million yearly to the Texas so-called Robin-Hood ("recapture") plan for distribution to property-tax-poor school districts. And it's the only school district in the Rio Grande Valley to have to send money to the state. Brownsville is one of those recipient school districts. 

According to the district's response to a Request For Information, the PI ISD in the last 10 years has pitched in $186,285,274 to the "recapture" plan. You read that right: almost $200 million sent to Austin.

Even if PI ISD gave up the Port and Brownsville ISD got that tax income, PI would still have to send some money to the state and Brownsville would still be receiving some of those recaptured state funds.

And fears by PI ISD residents that BISD taxes would be foisted upon them with the envisioned boundary change seem to be unfounded since the BISD proposed boundaries would only extend to as far as the Zapata Boat Ramp and wouldn't go near any residential properties of Port Isabel. All that public land is within the boundaries of the Brownsville Navigation District.

While it's Brownsville residents who put up with the traffic congestion created by port workers and freight and who endure with the threat of hazardous cargoes rumbling past our schools and neighborhoods, and in the majority of cases educate the children of the majority of port workers, the bulk - if not all - of the taxes go to the Point Isabel ISD.

(In the photo at right, trucks laden with hazardous chemicals roll past Canales Elementary School on International Blvd. in Brownsville.)

Except for a strip of land along the westernmost edge of the Port of Brownsville, nearly all the industry (including Amfels, Transmontaigne, the shipwreckers, the Shrimp Basin, etc.) pay taxes to the PI ISD, not Brownsville schools. The three proposed LNG plants would be the same. Same goes for SpaceX. It, too, lies in the boundaries of the PI ISD.

Brownsville school would probably educate the students who came along with their parents to work there, too.

As far as we know, there are no petrochemical courses being taught at the local community colleges. If the plants were to be built tomorrow, the bulk of those "high-paying jobs" – as in the case of SpaceX – would probably be taken by outside professionals coming from somewhere else, mainly California.

There is still a debate on the desirability of having the LNG plants come here, but regardless of whether they come or not, the same disparity in Port of Brownsville and SpaceX taxes going to PI ISD and not to BISD will remain. LNGs thrown into that scheme will just exacerbate the issue.

How about it PI ISD and the new board over at the BISD?