How Proposition One will affect Houston schools and property taxes

HOUSTON -- There are a lot of big races this election season and a lot of important issues. We want to highlight one in particular that is very complex but will impact local schools and your taxes for years to come.

It's called recapture and is listed as Proposition One on your ballot. Basically you're voting for or against whether HISD should send a check for $162 million to the state.

It's important to know, Houston will lose the money no matter what -- you're just voting on how the state will get it.

If you vote for, HISD will send the money to Austin in the spring and the state education board will in turn give that money to a district it deems poorer than Houston. If you vote for, you're also giving future permission to HISD to continue sending these checks which will total a billion dollars by 2020.

Now if you vote against, HISD will keep the money, but the state will come after it another way. HISD would likely lose some of its most valuable properties next July, and businesses could be reassigned to different school districts with higher tax rates.

Neither option seems great, but Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and some HISD board members are pushing for you to vote against in the hopes that state lawmakers will intervene and change school finance rules before next summer.