Four months.
Four months is a long time to work on a blog post. It’s especially long if you are trying to blend public policy with something that affects you very personally. You want to make sure you give people as much information as they are willing to absorb, and you don’t want to taint any of it with your own bias. I’m going to give it my best, but here’s the transparency alert:
Transparency alert! I was on the citizen steering committee that advised the school board on this issue. My wife is a teacher in the district. I have family who teach elsewhere. My daughter saved roughly a year of tuition through GISD’s dual credit program. I’ve joined every school’s PTA before, and I’m a product of GISD. Despite that, those that know me well know that I will go to great lengths to take a fair approach. I apologize in advance for any blind spots that I have on the issue.
Yes, I’m blogging about a tax rate election for an entity who employs my spouse. But, if you’re willing to read to the end, I’ll do my very best to make sure this isn’t a waste of your time. Also, as a former politician, I promise to limit myself to only one folksy aphorism for this post.
The only thing I’ll ask is that you do not cherry pick quotes out of this in ways that ignore the point of the blog. Be honest with the information you share.
The What
Proposition A was approved by the School Board on August 12th. For those who aren’t up to speed on it yet, Prop A is a tax rate increase for the school district that will be on the November ballot.
The What It Isn’t
This isn’t the bond that was passed in 2023. That’s for buildings. This is the salary side of the budget.
This isn’t the City of Garland. That’s a completely separate entity.
This isn’t “preposition A”. This isn’t something I would end a sentence with. (Sorry, English teachers).
The Why
Senate Bill 2 (SB2), a revenue limiting / property tax relief bill that was passed in 2019, aimed to cut local government size and spending by restricting the amount of money they could take in each year irrespective of inflation. SB2 requires the citizens/taxpayers/you to say that it’s okay for them to take in more money above the “cap”.
SB2 limited the growth of the school district’s operations budget 2.5% per year. They did that for two reasons- to reduce high taxes, and to shrink local governments. Love it or hate it, that bill is achieving its goal slowly but surely.
In theory, SB2’s 2.5% annual cap means O&M revenue could grow about 19% over seven years. In reality, inflation over that same period was closer to 30%. That’s like running a race where your legs grow at 19% a year while the finish line sprints away at 28%.
But hey, it’s only 9% in total. That isn’t too bad. The school district should be able to reduce its footprint by 9%, right? Right. Any district could definitely have found 9%. GISD found it and cut it. That should have been the end of the discussion, but it wasn’t.
That money doesn’t go straight to the district; it goes to the state to pass back out to the districts. What happens if the state decides to just keep paying school districts the same amount of money each year instead of increasing it for inflation?
That’s more or less what happened. Austin decided not to increase our allotment to match inflation. So instead of a 9% budget diet, we’ve been told to cut our calories by 28%. That’s not trimming fat… it’s lopping off limbs. And yes, I am saying that the state took in a lot of education tax dollars over the past 6 years and did not spend those dollars on education. Shocked? Me neither.
I looked at my own personal finances, and I could cut 9% by cancelling my streaming services, eating only at home, and deferring maintenance on my home. A 28% cut means that my kids don’t get a college fund and I only shower when it rains. Even with slowly falling enrollment numbers, a 28% cut is not a reasonable solution.
The district is feeling the crunch of that artificial cap along with being short-changed by the state, and is coming to us to ask if we’ll let it take in money to get it closer to matching inflation. That’s where you come in. In November, you get to decide whether or not they do.
The Consequences
Senior citizens’ tax rates are frozen and are unaffected either way. So, whether you vote yes or no, your homestead taxes will likely go down the same amount next year.
If you vote Yes on Prop A
The school district will raise the tax rate $0.12 per $100 value of your property. The hit I’ll personally take is probably ~$21/month. It’s not insignificant. It’ll cover a Netflix subscription, half a tank of gas, or put food on the table for 1-2 nights if you’re frugal. It’s real money, and I don’t want to trivialize it by saying “it’s X number of Starbucks drinks”. We’re all adults here, and I’m not trying to sell you something. $21 is $21.
The school district will take in that money (which will trigger some additional amount from the state) and use it to maintain their programs. The state calls it CCMR – College Career and Military Readiness. In Garland, we teach things like electrical, welding, food service, veterinary assistance, fire/paramedic, web design, automotive tech, cosmetology, nursing, pharmacy, computer tech, industrial robotics, culinary, hospitality, construction, and a number of others. Blue collar jobs. It also covers the miliary pathway- passing the ASVAB or enlisting. It also offers dual credit classes, where the class you take in high school earns you college credit hours. That money will continue to fully fund those programs.
If you vote No on Prop A
The school district will not adjust the tax rate. The school district will need to cut their operating costs by about $50 million in 2026. They have ideas on what programs they’ll cut, and my best guess is that we’ll see it primarily in the CCMR space. Everything else is core, mandated curriculum. Programs where their income can offset all of their operating costs will ‘probably’ be spared, but there are no guarantees. The district will go on existing with a smaller footprint and fewer features. I would think that there would be layoffs to coincide with the program cuts, but your guess is as good as mine as to when and how many.
Why I could easily vote no
Between ISD taxes, the money I’ve been putting into my kids’ college funds, my own tuition bill, and paying off my wife’s student loan, I’m about at my limit for what I want to spend on members of the Smith family paying for the privilege to write essays (and blog posts for that matter).
Here’s a list of thoughts that have run through my head in the past:
- I can’t measure success. How do I know that the money going in is producing a better product coming out? When curriculums change, the way we measure success changes, technology changes (that we just got done teaching kids), how do I know whether $8k / student gives a kid more tools to succeed with than $7k / student?
- Is giving a teacher a $500 raise going to create better students?
- Why do we need all of these coordinators?
- How many coordinators does it take to screw in a light bulb?
- The counselor didn’t really help with my kid’s schedule. Why do they want more of them?
- Why am I paying for kids to learn about cows? There’s zero farmland in this city.
- Why do they keep moving magnet programs to failing schools? Is that to cover up for a bad campus and offset it with kids that are already doing well?
- We pay who HOW much?
I give all the credit in the world to the educators in my family for patiently explaining the answers to most of these questions and making them make sense. But the frustration and anxiety over this is real. And I have seen people treated poorly when they ask these questions in a public forum. They are talked down to, asked to fly blindly on faith alone, or given a sales pitch instead of a serious, respectful answer. That is not okay.
I also tend to react negatively when I hear “do it for the children”. That line has been used by some very bad administrators in the past to fund some very stupid things. My thought has always been, “Prove to me that what you’re doing is for the children. Show me empirically how it helps them. Then respect the decision that I make with my money. Tax dollars from the public are a gift, not an entitlement.”
Why I want to vote yes
I like the idea that our kids will graduate and have an easier way to earn a living on day one. There’s a broad range of careers that are part of these programs, so we aren’t creating a market glut. One of the common criticisms I heard (and have said myself) was that school districts used to do nothing but push college on kids that didn’t want it, didn’t need it, but needed classes like shop, home economics/cooking, and trades. Districts didn’t start offering that again until after I graduated in the late 90’s. GISD has done a good job of getting those career pathways re-established for the kids over the last 20 years, and I like the results.
I feel like when I need an electrician to swap a breaker, or call 911 to get a paramedic, or head to the vet to pull yet another foreign object out of my dog’s intestines, then the help I’m getting has a few more years of experience and more mentored education than they otherwise would. I like that skilled tradespeople don’t have to waste time going to a college that will do nothing for them. I like that college kids can essentially get a free year by applying themselves in high school. And I like the idea that kids that want to be pilots, infantrymen, sailors, and medics can get a head start on that too. To be selfish about it- I want to see these programs continue because I think they benefit me and the city that I live in. Plus, kids get to try out a number of careers ahead of time to see what fits so they don’t unintentionally end up doing something that they are going to hate.
And to my points in the previous section about the value of raises, when these dollars fund programs, I can point to those things and say, “X number of dollars gives me Y number of nursing assistants”. It helps take the uncertainty out of it for me and proves the value.
When it comes to questions about the budget, school financing is a lot more complicated than municipal financing ever was. I was hoping my council experience would translate into better understanding school finance.
It didn’t.
I peeked into the major school finance formulas, and I have to tell you, it feels like they were written by a caffeinated raccoon in the middle of a lightning storm (there’s the folksy aphorism- one and done as promised).
The state has created a system where you are punished if you don’t have a high enough tax rate. You have to go to the voters to get the ‘correct’ tax rate for the state, then the legislature blasts you publicly for your taxes being too high even though it’s the system that they created. Rinse and repeat every election cycle. The political theater is repetitive and exhausting. Having seen what the ISDs go through every two years, I’m more inclined to support them.
There’s plenty of blame to go around for how we got here, but today it really is a no-win situation for the ISDs. I get what they are trying to do and how they are trying to do it. I don’t agree with every decision. But it won’t stop me from voting to move things forward and fund the things I feel need to be funded.
Conclusions
There are a million different angles you can take when you look at this vote. Every single one of us can think of grievances and successes when it comes to the district. You can probably pick your favorite one, post it, and have a dozen people pile on.
What we shouldn’t do is make this about personalities. I won’t let the government teacher I adored or the economics teacher that I didn’t (that’s a random example I swear), color how we decide to vote on this. Humans aren’t perfect, and they’re going to do human, imperfect things. What I think we ought to consider foremost is what programs are being funded instead of the people that participate in them.
At the end of the day, I’ve done my best to set aside personalities and rhetoric and decide based on three criteria:
- Do I want more of the product that the district provides?
- Has the district done enough to eliminate waste and prove they need the money?
- Can I personally afford to vote yes?
For me, the answer is yes to all three.
- I like the CCMR focus. I want more of it.
- I think the district has done a good job of trimming the fat out of their operating budget. Admin makes up about half a percent of their staff, which is way below average. I’ve seen several teachers get extremely creative with how to carry out lesson plans on extremely tight budgets. They’ve scaled back their operations in every way imaginable short of layoffs and program cuts.
- I can personally afford the $21/month for my household.
I hope that if you made it to the end of this, it has helped you in some way. I know that every person reading this wants kids to succeed no matter how you vote. I appreciate that you are taking the time to engage, educate yourself, and let your voice be heard at the polls. No matter how you vote, I hope you’ll do it in an informed way and with our community’s future in mind.
-RJS and Rocky, the Caffeinated School Finance Raccoon
This is a “Best Effort” calculator to estimate your new property taxes under Prop A.
It is not an official calculator provided by the ISD or the appraisal district.
Prop A Tax Calculator
Enter your property’s appraised value and select exemptions: