Harris County Department of Education (HCDE) employs a school superintendent with compensation comparable to superintendents.
As the state's only remaining county education board maintains four alternative schools for students with intellectual or mental disabilities, drug addictions, or expelled or adjudicated.
These four schools can hold around 300 students at a time—local school districts contract seats at $20,300 to $23,500 per seat on an annual basis. The department also uses federal grants to run Head Start programs serving 1,500 children.
Board chairman Eric Dick built a non-partisan consensus of the board to support an increase for Superintendent James Colbert, Jr.'s salary based on his performance of continual success.
Decenters Could Have Been Racially Motivated
Trustees Don Sumners and Mike Wolfe (previously busted for trying to use his elected position to leverage dates from HCDE staffers) voted against.
"It wouldn't surprise me if their vote was racially motivated. They've said some stuff that made a few heads turn," said Board President Eric Dick. James Colbert is African-American.
According to the TEA, Nearby Aldine ISD compensates the superintendent $287,798 per year to oversee schools of nearly 67,000 students. Harris County's Spring ISD costs $267,582 to handle a student population of 35,385, and Houston ISD costs $345,060 to supervise 209,772 students.
Board president Dick defended his vote to increase the superintendent as he says Colbert did a decent job.
"He continued to raise how much we use a nominal tax rate for a vast volume of services. We have continued to lower tax rates and raise benefits! I don't know about any other organization that does this, "Dick wrote.
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The department also runs a "procurement operation," known as Choice Partners Cooperative, maintaining a record processing and storage facility for other government agencies.
Eric Dick is trustees' chairman of the Harris County Board of Education. Dick joined others in voting to increase Superintendent Colbert's salary.
President Dick maintains that HCDE should "serve other organizations as a role model."
"I say this because, for every tax dollar earned, HCDE will make it five. Think about it for a minute: if Houston ISD took a lesson from HCDE, our tax bills would be dramatically reduced, "Dick wrote.
Bettencourt, a state senator that owns a property tax rending organization and makes a fortune of high property taxes, had no interest. Instead, he prefers to get rid of HCDE. This would ultimately cause large shortfalls in education funds.
Wolfe, who essentially wants to increase property taxes, calls for state legislative action on the HCDE in the next session. Wolfe has previously been censured for sexually harassing women during his elected tenure.
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