GCISD Prepares for Wind Farms
At its Aug. 13 meeting, the GCISD board approved a policy (CCG Local), which will allow it to enter into “tax limitation” agreements with commercial entities in the future, if it chooses to do so.
The wind energy company Airtricity has approached Superintendent Steve Long with intent to file an application for tax limitation treatment of its wind turbine activity in Glasscock County. (Texas school districts are not allowed to grant tax abatements.) The application would be accompanied by a $75,000 payment to the school district to be used to pay for an impact study which would supposedly determine if a tax limitation agreement would be in the school district’s best interest.
The purpose of such a tax limitation agreement would be to enable the school district to treat tax income from the turbines in such a way as to reduce the dollars that would have to be sent out of the district under the state WADA (Robin Hood) system.
The school board would either approve or disapprove the tax limitation after it was approved by the state comptroller, the local appraisal district, and after the impact study.
Greater explanation of this complicated issue will be available in the future.