Why are Texas school districts asking voters to raise property tax rates?
Voters in some North Texas school districts are asking residents to approve new property tax rate increases.
The districts holding what's called Voter Approved Tax Rate Elections or VATRE, include: Carroll, HEB, Garland, Denton, Northwest, Bland, Rockwall, Crandall, and Peaster ISDs.
CBS News Texas spoke with Libby Cohen, the executive director of the organization Raise Your Hand Texas, which advocates for public education. We asked why school districts are doing this now, just as voters are also considering raising homestead exemptions, in an effort to lower their school property taxes.
"It's important for viewers to understand what's happened in school funding, especially in the last five years," Cohen said. "So, as we've all experienced in our daily lives since 2019, inflation has been quite significant. And that's had serious impacts for school district operating budgets, just like our own personal budgets. And in order for school districts to have the same buying power that they had in 2019, this past legislative session, the legislature would have needed to have invested $19.6 billion into public education."
School leaders say inflation and loss of COVID relief funds are straining budgets
COVID relief funding has expired, and Cohen said that the legislature hasn't done enough to fully make up for the way inflation is impacting school districts' budgets. Some districts have even had to tap into their savings to make the budget even out.
"It was estimated in the last school year that around two-thirds of school districts in the state passed deficit budgets," Cohen said. "You can only do that for so many years. And the new dollars that the state has provided are certainly helping, and were certainly an important step in the right direction."
"School districts are having to continue to make really difficult choices. Different school districts are handling that in different ways. We're seeing programs cut, we're seeing staff reductions, we're seeing campus closures all across the state. And, none of these decisions are easy for a school district, and all of them have a real impact on the students in those classrooms," Cohen added.
Texas senator warns tax hikes could offset recent property tax cuts
Republican State Senator Paul Bettencourt of Houston told CBS News Texas the state is reducing the school property tax rate by $0.06. If voters approve raising their school district's property tax rates, that will reduce their savings.
"It's your money. That's why you get to vote on homestead exemption increases. But at the same time, if you vote yourself a tax rate increase on a VATRE, it's going to cost you. Once that is increased, it sets in, and that's the permanent value that goes forward. So, make these votes and choose wisely," Sen. Bettencourt said in an interview with CBS News Texas.