Special Purpose Districts in Texas - Essay Sample

Introduction

Special purpose districts are the organized entities within a country excluding municipalities, counties, school districts, and counties, which have authority from state laws to provide a limited number of a single function. They hold the most basic level of governments. These special districts have adequate fiscal and administrative sovereignty which helps them qualify as separate governments. A determination of whether a particular district qualifies to function as an independent government is conducted by examining every statute which is forming a special purpose district. The governments in Texas keep increasing over time and more government's calls for the filing of more taxes which are levied on the citizens. More taxes leads people to feel that the government is exploiting them without any positive results. Texas, for example, has heavily relied on Special Purpose Districts to offer essential products to its citizens. Individuals in Texas participate least in these types of governments. This paper focuses on the reasons why Special Purpose Districts do not get much attention.

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The special purpose districts are advantageous to the members of the public in Texas. The services which SPD provides can be customized to meet the needs of local citizens within the region. Consequently, Special Purpose Districts are very flexible. Also, the SPD are small and are governed at a local level enabling flexibility are therefore more responsive and accessible to the needs of citizens in the district (Peebles, 2011). Additionally, Special Purpose Districts are autonomies and independent implying that they have no regulations and management other than the local board of directors.

Nonetheless, the failure of Special Purpose Districts has rendered citizens to feel that the Districts are not active and do not, therefore, meet the expectations of citizens. The SPD focuses on the provision and regulation of services at the local level, and counties and cities may be providing some of the services and performing some of the functions they provide. As a result, these districts might not necessarily perform to the expectations of the residents. Nonetheless, there are a large number of Special Purpose Districts with linear functions to offer thus limiting information available regarding some districts. As a result, there is a decrease in accountability and transparency in the regions which reduces their effectiveness. The SPDs, therefore, do not get attention from the residents. Also, SPDs are an independent and self-governing implying that their activities are rarely questioned as there is no intervention. Lack of the involvement of the members of the public in the activities of SPD makes it less popular among citizens who feel that they should have a hand in decision-making (MRSC Rosters, 2018).

As at July 2014, there were approximately 3350 SPDs in Texas out of which around 1960 would report to the Office of the Comptroller of Public Accounts (MRSC Rosters, 2018). This, therefore, implies that the Special Purpose Districts are not exactly unpopular among citizens due to a failure in delivering their functions. Conversely, the local population does not understand the services, structure, governance and the jurisdiction of SPDs which makes them Texas's invisible government.

The citizens are also finding the increasing number of governments in Texas unworthy as all they do is add unnecessary taxes on the local community. There has been a rise in the particular government districts which has moved from 5 to 185 for the last twenty years (Research Spotlight, 2014). In addition to these districts, there are other 1700 districts which impose property taxes on the commercial and residential property together with other hundreds of management and utility districts which serve as public bodies and have authority over a public facility. Arguments arise that Texas does not require the additional layers of the government congestion in the government only increases the need by the government to levy more taxes on the public. The members of the public, therefore, are likely to lose touch with these Special districts as they feel the congestion by government agencies is a form of oppression. In addition, special purpose districts are all over and therefore can be set up with only one vote. The minimized involvement of the members of the public renders the SPD to gather little attention. Newspapers such as the Record-Chronicle criticized these citizens who hired themselves by creating more districts in the continent which adds on expenses of the residents of Texas. Another critic comes from Coleman of Denton County who terms special districts as, 'bad public policies for the growing nations.' (Research Spotlight, 2014).

Special Purpose Districts have increased vastly over the past two decades. Despite the limited functions of these districts, they have continually increased leading to a lack of attention from the public. Additionally, Special Purpose Districts are self-governing implying that their roles, structure, and activities have not been laid off clearly to citizens and therefore gaining little popularity. Nonetheless, despite having little popularity, Special Purpose Districts work on delivering their specific duties and performing their functions to improve Texas and increase development. However, the SPDs are more advantageous to larger and more broadly defined governments like the state and counties.

References

MRSC Rosters. (2018). MRSC - What is a Special District? Retrieved from http://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics/Governance/Forms-of-Government-and-Organization/Special-Purpose-Districts-in-Washington/What-is-a-Special-District.aspx

Peebles, J. (2011). Growing governments: How 'special districts' spread across Texas with limited oversight and accountability -- but with plenty of power to tax | Texas Watchdog. Retrieved from http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2011/02/growing-governments-how-special-districts-spread-across-Texas-power-to-tax/1297796531.story

Research Spotlight. (2014). Invisible Government: Special Purpose Districts in Texas [Ebook] (pp. 28-47). Texas Senate Research Center. Retrieved from https://senate.texas.gov/_assets/srcpub/Spotlight_Special_Purpose_Districts.pdf