Hey Taxman, we need some help here!

I tuned into KSEV 700 Tuesday afternoon and heard Paul Bettencourt and team discussing the sale of the Houston Independent School District’s Law Enforcement High School campus. It was a fair enough discussion, with Paul having HISD Supt. Terry Grier on and then representatives from one of the bidders for the campus, St. Thomas High School. To be completely fair, they would have reps from the private bidder, A.V. Dickson, but there are only so many minutes of air time. That and the fact that Bettencourt supports St. Thomas’ bid.

But what surprised me was Tio Pablo’s complete disregard for the value of the land to taxpayers. Bettencourt told listeners to disregard the tax implications because they were nothing more than a “gnat on an elephant”. This from the self-anointed “Taxman”? Let’s take a look at that gnat in the form of a few tables that show what the tax implications are.

The first table is the current tax bill, taken straight from Tax Assessor/Collector Mike Sullivan’s calculations. BTW Mike, I like the new format. Obviously there are no taxes currently being collected because it is a tax-exempt property. If St. Thomas High School is successful in their bid, it will remain off the tax rolls. The next three tables show the ‘gnat on the elephant’. As currently under appraised, the tax bill would be roughly a quarter million dollars. Bigger than a gnat but not all that much for a property in close proximity to Shepherd Drive/Memorial Drive intersection. The third table down shows the tax implication of a minimum bid/development. I’d say that $1.7 million rolling into the various taxing agencies is a whole lot more than a gnat. But take a look a the last table to get a true impact of the tax implications if HISD markets the property correctly and it is developed as A.V. Dickson intends – $2.8 million is an elephant, not a gnat. And for HISD’s purposes, $1.25 million would hire a lot of teachers.

I understand the emotional side of this but taxpayers need to be represented in this equation too. And I’m really surprised that the Taxman, currently running unopposed for the Senate District 7 seat, isn’t filling that role.

For a good read on the issue, try Charlotte Aguilar’s article in The Leader: Do the math: investor bid exceeds St. Thomas’ for HISD law enforcement high school property.