What is recapture?
Recapture is the provision of the Texas school finance system through which property wealth in the state's wealthiest districts is used to help support educational equity for all children across the whole system.

Why do the children of Texas need recapture?
Recapture enables 90 percent of all students to have a higher level of education than they would otherwise have, due to which neighborhood they live in. Recapture also ensures that we do not have a system where a few children have superior education while the majority receive inferior education.

How many school districts are subject to recapture?
There are 1,041 school districts in the state. Of those, 134 are wealthy districts. To see a list of those districts, click here.

How does recapture work?
Extra money generated by taxes from wealthy districts is sent to Austin. The money is said to be "recaptured." It is deposited into the state budget. This is what most wealthy districts opt to do. A small number share their wealth directly with another one of the 900 or so low-wealth school districts.

Which districts benefit from recapture?
Recaptured money is then sent from Austin to about 887 other districts to support their education programs.

What would happen if we lost recapture?
Eliminating recapture would cause 887 school districts to lose more than a billion dollars in funding. That means the majority of Texas children would have $230 less for their education each year. That also means that taxes for the poor and average wealth districts would have to go up.

If we get rid of recapture, the 135 wealthy districts would get almost $2,000 more for their students' education each year.

• The children in 10 of the 15 districts in the Dallas area would lose more than $53 million.
• The children in 15 of the 20 school districts in the Houston area would lose more than $171 million
• The children in the San Antonio area, would lose more than $75.8 million.
• The children in the El Paso area would lose more than $47 million to educate children in those public schools
• The children in districts in Cameron County, in the Brownsville area, would lose more than $23 million.
• The children in the 15 school districts in Hidalgo County would lose more than $47.5 million

Of course recapture is not the only way to achieve equity. Adoption of a state property tax that could be used to fund all public schools more equitably is another option.

Learn more about the issue.
     State Role in Equalizing Funding
     How Your Schools are Funded
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