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Commentary: The TIRZ of Midlothian

By Tom Dodge, KERA 90.1 commentator

Dallas, TX –

God, as most small-town politicians know, is a middle-aged white gentleman who lives in the sky and keeps up with small-town doings. And they also know he likes to be thanked egregiously by way of prayer for providing lots of tax money and good football teams.

But what's this? The Midlothian City Attorney warned school board trustees at a board meeting recently that praying at board meetings was a little risky. According to the Midlothian Mirror, one trustee asked what the penalty might be for such an infraction. The attorney speculated that a prayer could cost in the neighborhood of a hundred grand.

The paper did not record the trustee's response.

This front-page story ran adjacent to another one informing taxpayers that the $14.2 million dollar football stadium is now approaching $16 million - and this doesn't even include a scoreboard! This coliseum is to be paid for by property owners who voted last year to pass the $82.2 million school bond.

Well, I prayed about this, in the privacy of my own home as the Bible directs, and I'm pretty sure I heard God say, "Let TXI pay for it." TXI, as we all know, is the Fortune 500 cement company in Midlothian that makes lots of free money by fueling its kilns with hazardous waste.

But what did God mean? We in Midlothian thought it was God's will that TXI get its school tax refunded each year. It was even printed in the May issue of D Magazine. Thanks to a corporate-friendly measure called Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, or TIRZ, TXI and several other Texas corporations are removed from the tax rolls.

According to D, TXI's school tax for its property last year was $6.8 million. But the school didn't get it. As it has since 1998 it went instead to an outfit called the Midlothian Development Authority.

Then, in a blink of an eye but not so fast that God couldn't see it, the Midlothian Development Authority remanded it back to TXI for "public improvement." That this "public improvement" applies only to TXI's property doesn't escape God's attention either. I know because otherwise God wouldn't have said, "Let TXI pay for it."

But, hey, "What's in it for the school district?" you may be saying.

Okay, that's easy. The deal makes Midlothian a poor district under the Texas School Finance Program, known as the Robin Hood plan, and therefore eligible to receive state funds. But taking the TXI property tax would make Midlothian a rich district and therefore ineligible for the free money flying in from other rich districts who weren't slick enough to come up with their own TIRZ. In fact it would have to pay out Robin Hood money to poor districts. Unfortunately for other districts hoping for their own sweetheart deals, the legislature nixed the TIRZ program in 1999 but grandfathered in those already at the trough.

The way I figure it, since 1998, when TIRZ was approved, TXI owes around $30 million in taxes. This amount would even pay for the domed stadium a board member was rumored to be hoping for.

So, I say to TXI and the TIRZMEN, cough up (bad choice of words) come up with the $30 million so the prayers of the board members will be answered and we can have our domed stadium.

 

Tom Dodge is a writer from Midlothian. If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.