Early voting begins Wednesday in five local school districts that are among a group of at least nine in North Texas looking to increase revenue for operating expenses by putting a Tax Ratification Election (TRE) before their voters this fall.
Voters in the Azle Independent School District, Cedar Hill ISD, Duncanville ISD, Ennis ISD and Keller ISD can vote now through Sept. 4, ahead of the Saturday, Sept. 8 Election Day.
In addition, voters in the Dallas ISD, Frisco ISD, Lancaster ISD and Richardson ISD will be asked to consider approving a TRE in November.
A TRE is a special election that becomes necessary when a school district wants to raise the operating tax rate above the maximum standard amount allowed by Texas law of $1.04.
If voters approve the TRE’s that are proposed in these local school districts it would immediately inject tens of millions of dollars into their maintenance and operating budgets.
Many of the districts plan to use the money to provide raises for teachers and staff, and some – like the Richardson ISD – plan to hire additional staff as well, including more school resource officers.
The President of the Richardson ISD Board of Trustees explained that the additional revenue that the TRE would raise – approximately $24.5 million – is especially necessary because last school year the district had to dip into its financial reserves for $6 million dollars to cover its payroll.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
“We are now at a point where if this (TRE) doesn’t pass it’s important to understand it is not the ‘status quo’ situation,” said Board President Justin Bono. “We’re going to need to have to make decisions on where to make about $10 million in cuts out of our budget. So these would be hard decisions.”
Bono and other school board leaders across Texas have long railed against the established system to provide state funding for schools.
“Many citizens apparently don’t understand their districts’ urgent need for funds in the wake of House Bill 1 in 2006,” wrote Robert Seward, a Mesquite ISD trustee and former president of the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), in an article published on the TASB website.
The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1 twelve years ago in an effort to “address a continuous decline in state funding support for public education,” according to Dennis Womack, who wrote a doctoral dissertation for the University of North Texas called, ‘The Impact of Target Revenue Funding on Public School Districts in North Texas.’
Under Texas law, wealthier school districts - “measured in terms of the taxable value of property that lies within the school district borders divided by the number of students in weighted average daily attendance,” according to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) - are required to ‘share the wealth’ with the other, less fortunate school districts in the state. This funding mechanism has been widely derided and referred to as a ‘Robin Hood’ system.
In Richardson, a group of concerned citizens has formed to oppose the proposed TRE on several grounds.
“Richardson ISD residents are already being taxed out of their homes due to increases in property tax valuations,” noted Chris McNutt of ‘Vote NO on the RISD TRE.’ “Ultimately, passing the TRE is only a temporary band-aid and doesn’t fix anything.”
“If voters were to vote on teacher salaries exclusively, I’m sure you would find a near consensus among RISD residents to vote ‘Yes.’ We want our teachers to be paid because they are the backbone of our community,” McNutt told NBC DFW. “But RISD is holding their salaries hostage by pitting them against the very families they serve, and threatening that teachers will not get a raise if they vote ‘No’ on the TRE.”
McNutt indicated that voters in the Frisco ISD, where the Board of Trustees just this week called for a TRE vote in November, rejected a TRE in 2016 that district was “able to magically find a way to pay their teachers more money after they said it wasn’t possible.”
