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Thursday, September 25, 1997

House committee to continue review of state taxes

By JUAN B. ELIZONDO Jr. / Associated Press Writer

AUSTIN (AP) -- A marginally successful effort to lower local school property taxes earlier this year is gearing up for a second and more ambitious push.

Texas House Speaker Pete Laney on Wednesday directed the Committee on Revenue and Public Education to renew its work reviewing the state's tax system and to develop recommendations for changing it.

Lawmakers could consider recommendations from the committee during the 1999 Legislature.

The committee, headed by Rep. Paul Sadler, D-Henderson, searched during the 1997 Legislature for ways to add more money to the state's education system and to cut local school property taxes.

Those taxes are a major source of school funding and continue to increase. Gov. George W. Bush has called the increases a major hurdle to home ownership.

Lawmakers and Bush were able to reach a modest compromise on cutting local school taxes by about $1 billion over the next two years. That amounts to an annual $140 tax savings for homeowners.

Laney, D-Hale Center, said the House committee's efforts to do more are too valuable to abandon.

"Chairman Sadler and the members of his committee started the job of exposing inequities in our state's tax structure as well as problems with our school finance system, working under the severe time limitations of the legislative session," Laney said. "These issues are too important to the future of our state to let the work of the committee go unfinished."

Sadler had said he would retire at the end of his current term in January 1999. But he said Laney's request that he again head the committee forced him to reverse that decision.

"It was implicit that I would seek re-election," Sadler said.

The chairman added that the committee's focus will broaden under the new assignment, reviewing all of the state's economy, its growth areas and its problem spots. He said school funding and local school property taxes are only part of that.

In the past, Sadler has said a statewide income tax could more fairly provide the money needed to fund the state's school system.

On Wednesday, he said the committee will not focus on an income tax nor any other possible changes before reviewing the state's current tax structure.

The committee could organize in the next month and likely will hold hearings around the state, Sadler said.

Other committee members include Reps. Paul Hilbert, R-Spring; Kim Brimer, R-Arlington; Warren Chisum, R-Pampa; Tom Craddick, R-Midland; Christine Hernandez, D-San Antonio; Scott Hochberg, D-Houston; Rob Junell, D-San Angelo; Mark Stiles, D-Beaumont; Ric Williamson, R-Weatherford; and Ron Wilson, D-Houston.