Several Central Texas school districts are pushing for changes to the state’s school finance system, saying state government relies too much on local tax revenue to fund education.

Under the state’s school finance system, districts with high property values — including Austin and several smaller districts in the city’s western and northern suburbs — must send a portion of their property tax revenue to the state to subsidize districts in other parts of Texas, where property values are low.

The state contributes about 41 percent of the total funding for schools in Texas, while local revenue from property taxes accounts for 48 percent.

Two interim committees are examining the state’s school finance system, charged with making recommendations before the next legislative session that begins in January.

Nicole Conley, the Austin district’s CFO, will testify Wednesday on the so-called state recapture payments before two legislative committees. Conley said she’s testifying to explain "the severe financial effect that recapture has on Austin ISD and Austin taxpayers."

The Austin district has long been the largest single payer of recapture, this year expecting to pay $406 million of local property revenue to the state. In 2015, the district’s property tax revenue accounted for 13 percent of the total recapture payments to the state.

During the next five years the district is projected to pay almost $2.6 billion in recapture payments. And if nothing changes, by 2019 more than half of every property tax dollar collected for education in Austin will go to the state, Conley said.

"We need more of our local dollars to stay in our local schools," Conley said. "We know there are districts throughout the state that need additional funds to educate their students, but it is the duty of the state to provide those funds, not local property taxpayers. The state’s over-reliance on recapture is leading to an unintended, inequitable burden for Austin taxpayers who are shouldering much more of the expense to educate our state’s children."

But advocates for equitable school funding say that Austin and other property wealthy districts have long had more money than property-poor districts.

School leaders from other Central Texas districts required to make recapture payments, including Eanes, Georgetown and Lake Travis, are hoping to get support from the Legislature. They are also hoping to ally with other districts, such as Houston, which is being required to make a recapture payment for the first time this year.

"The school finance system is broken," said Gina Hinojosa, who serves on the Austin school board but is vacating her local post to run for the state House District 49 seat in the November election. "It’s punitive to Austin like no other community. When we have to send over $400 million to the state this year alone in local property taxes, it ties our hands and longtime residents are priced out of their homes."

Drew Scheberle, senior vice president over education and state advocacy at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, calls recapture the biggest issue for Central Texas taxpayers in the coming Legislative session.

"The Legislature needs to make changes," Scheberle said. "They are pricing families out of Austin and crowding our ability to make other needed investments."

When the state first began using recapture, 35 districts were required to make recapture payments, but the number keeps growing. This year, there are more than 400 such districts, including Austin.

Taxpayers in the Dripping Springs school district earlier this month approved increasing the the operations portion of its tax rate (and lowering the debt portion of the rate by an equal amount) in efforts to generate more money for its budget as it estimates its recapture payment at $2 million. Elaine Cogburn, the district’s assistant superintendent of business services, said the move helps offset the funds Dripping Springs must send to the state.