After an outpouring of support from local child care advocates, Travis County commissioners approved a measure Aug. 13 to ask voters for a tax increase on the November ballot.  What's happening: Property owners across the metro are being asked to support lowering annual child care costs. Currently, the cost for one child to attend daycare in Travis County is comparable with a year of tuition at The University of Texas at Austin, officials said. If approved by voters, the increase would raise an additional $77 million annually—an estimated $288 total tax increase to the average homeowner—to fund a multipronged approach aimed at reducing the burden of child care costs for the community’s most vulnerable populations. view article

Kilgore ISD school board trustees voted at a recent meeting to approve a deficit budget and a lower tax rate for the upcoming school year. Chief Financial Officer Trish Hall told board members and faculty in attendance the district’s projected budget revenue for 2024-2025 was calculated at $38,390,571 and projected expenditures at $39,910,900. This leaves the upcoming year’s budget with a projected budget deficit of $1,520,329. The district’s budget is comprised of three components: the general fund budget, nutrition services budget and the debt service fund budget. view article

Texas Republicans have been trying to reduce the state’s high property taxes for years, but some acknowledge eliminating them would be too expensive.  view article

Four Austin-area school districts facing budget deficits for the 2024-25 school year have called tax rate elections for November in hopes of raising more money to keep from being forced to slash more resources and programming.  As the new school year begins, districts across Texas are tightening their belts, with some eliminating positions, to avoid having to make deeper classroom-level cuts. Many local school board leaders have laid the blame on state lawmakers for not increasing public education funding significantly during the 2023 legislative session.  Some local districts are turning to their residents and calling tax rate elections — a tool that allows school boards to ask voters to approve a higher property tax rate than the state would otherwise allow the district to set — to help close the budget gap. Last year, voters in districts including Round Rock, Pflugerville and Lockhart passed similar measures. view article

Homeowners in the Clint Independent School District boundaries likely will see a significant increase in the district’s portion of their 2024 tax bills after the board adopted the highest tax rate possible without having to go to voters. The Clint ISD board on August 28 unanimously approved the voter-approval rate of $1.13 per $100 property valuation – the highest it could adopt without triggering an election. This will cause a $166 a year increase on the district’s tax bill on the average $196,814 home, Jessie Cline, the district’s chief financial officer told El Paso Matters. view article

The Brownsville Independent School District Board of Trustees approved a tax rate of $1.028664 per $100 valuation for 2024-2025, a slight decrease from the 2023-2024 rate of $1.030964. The approval came after a public hearing at a BISD board meeting Tuesday night and marked the final step to fully enact the district’s $490 million budget for the current school year. The budget for last year was $465 million. view article

verything is bigger in Texas—including state police contracts for surveillance tech. In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web. Tangles’ premier add-on feature, WebLoc, is controversial among digital privacy advocates. Any client who purchases access to WebLoc can track different mobile devices’ movements in a specific, virtual area selected by the user, through a capability called “geofencing.” Users of software like Tangles can do this without a search warrant or subpoena. (In a high-profile ruling, the Fifth Circuit view article

The Anthony Independent School District is looking to increase taxes for its home property owners. The school district is asking voters to consider raising their taxes in the November election. This comes after the Superintendent said the district experienced a budget shortfall due to continued inflation. view article

In an effort to improve teacher retention and provide raises to school resource officers, the Magnolia ISD will hold a voter-approval tax rate election Nov. 5. A voter-approval tax rate election, or VATRE, is an election that asks voters whether or not they authorize the school district to access the maintenance and operations tax rate to create additional local and state funding. view article

Two days after Fort Worth ISD passed a resolution condemning the Tarrant Appraisal District’s new plan for appraising residential properties, the Arlington school board followed suit.  view article

The College Station ISD Board of Trustees unanimously voted to approve the district’s tax rate and budget for the 2024-2025 year. view article

Superintendent Mark Foust said Northwest ISD could lose up to $10 million annually in state funding as a result of recent changes the Tarrant Appraisal District made to how it appraises properties. At the Aug. 13 board meeting, Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Pastusek said TAD proposed changes on Aug. 8 to the way they do business that can affect how cities, hospital districts and school districts receive funding. These changes include: view article

AUSTIN, Texas — After months of discussion, the Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees voted Monday night to place the VATRE in the hands of voters. view article

Editor's note: The print version of the story makes a reference to a raise in 2024-25, but a raise was only given in 2023-24 in Conroe ISD. Conroe ISD is looking to cover increasing costs and staffing needs in the 2024-25 fiscal year despite a lack of increased state funding. The Texas Legislature designated $4 billion for public education funding in the 88th legislative session in 2023, but measures to provide that funding to schools failed to pass. CISD expects an $11.9 million budget shortfall in 2024-25. Officials said the district can cover the gap this year, but planning for the 2025-26 fiscal year may require other approaches. “December, January is when those decisions [to make cuts] are going to have to be made,” Superintendent Curtis Null said.   view article

Austin ISD officials are depending on voters’ approval of a tax rate increase in order to lessen a looming budget deficit of $78 million. view article

Boyd ISD trustees unanimously approved the district’s 2024-25 fiscal year tax rate and budget during its monthly meeting Monday. Following public hearings for both measures, the school board approved increasing its property tax rate by 3.5 cents to 89.42 cents per $100 valuation. Of that amount, 66.92 cents will be used for maintenance and operations, while 22.50 cents is designated for interest and sinking. The tax rate increase was due to the district’s voter-approved $20 million bond package in May.  view article

The Brenham ISD board of trustees unanimously agreed to authorize Superintendent Clay Gillentine to negotiate with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) if the state seeks to recapture funds from the district because of rising preliminary property values. view article

The Austin ISD school board is asking voters to approve a higher property tax rate in November that would increase the district’s revenue by tens of millions of dollars. That money would be used to give more than 60% of employees a raise and reduce the district’s budget deficit to $78 million. Austin ISD officials have said the main reason the district has a deficit is because state funding for public schools has not kept up with inflation. view article

A big vote on Monday could decide the future of schools within the Austin Independent School District. Members of the Austin ISD Board are set to meet and vote on approval of a Voter Tax Rate Election – or VATRE. If it passes a vote on Monday, it would then head to the ballot this November for Austin voters. view article

A big vote on Monday could decide the future of schools within the Austin Independent School District. Members of the Austin ISD Board are set to meet and vote on approval of a Voter Tax Rate Election – or VATRE. If it passes a vote on Monday, it would then head to the ballot this November for Austin voters. view article

Looking to increase employee pay throughout the district, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved the new plan Thursday night and set up a Voter Approval Tax Rate Election on Nov. 5 that will decide the amount of those employee raises. view article

An abundance of available space in Northwest ISD has housing developers turning dirt to create communities with a variety of housing types and amenities. Within NISD, enrollment has increased 27% in the past five years, said Bob Templeton with Zonda Education. Experts say the number of homes being built in the district will make it one of the highest populated in Region 11, an area covering 10 counties in North Texas. view article

Leon Fisher is no stranger to the economic challenges faced by Crowley ISD parents. Around 70% of Crowley ISD students are considered economically disadvantaged. The school district’s chief financial officer said those challenges are why Crowley ISD offers an exemption allowing homeowners to reduce the taxable value of their primary residence by 10% and why it strives to keep taxes low as growth in the area explodes. But Fisher fears the sweeping changes approved by the Tarrant Appraisal District’s board of directors July 22 — also intended to provide property tax relief to residents — could have dire consequences for public education in his community. “Parents are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. They want the tax benefit from this proposal, but it’s really all about educating people on how it’s going to impact your school district,” Fisher said. “It’s going to have an adverse impact on your school district’s ability to both complete (bond) projects within the scheduled time and within the budgeted amounts that were initially identified for these bond projects.” view article

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The summer provides a nice break for students and teachers alike, but school administrations and boards of trustees are busy finalizing and adopting budgets and proposed tax rates. At the June 25 regular meeting, Garland Independent School District trustees completed the task of approving their fiscal year budget for 2024-25 (FY25) and adopting a proposed tax rate. view article

The Austin school board last month adopted a $1.2 billion budget for the 2024-25 school year that depends on voters in November approving a tax rate of 92.87 cents per $100 of property valuation. The approved budget would leave Austin schools with a $41 million deficit for the upcoming school year. However, district officials said the proposed tax rate would keep the district from having a $78 million budget shortfall. Statewide, many school districts are grappling with ailing budgets as the Legislature last year did not pass any meaningful increases to public school funding to keep up with rising inflationary costs and demands for additional programming and services as well as employee pay raises — leaving districts to turn to local taxpayers to close the gap. view article

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)-- Socorro Independent School District held a board meeting to discuss how to correct the error that overcharged tax payers. TEA conservator, Dr. Michael Hinojosa says the error over charged tax payers around $24 individually and totaled $2 million. Hinojosa says they don't know how the error occurred but they will conduct an investigation. view article

The Seguin ISD is taking the first steps towards potentially asking voters for some much needed financial relief. The Seguin ISD Board of Trustees this week gave the go ahead for an audit that is required for district’s looking to ask voters for a tax rate increase using a Voter Approved Tax Rate Election. As initially reported by the Seguin Daily News, the Seguin ISD faces an almost $4 million deficit. view article

The South San Antonio Independent School District is the latest in the city to institute a pay increase for employees. On Thursday, the district’s board of trustees approved a 2% increase for all district employees ahead of the 2024-2025 school year. The entry pay for teachers at South San ISD is $59,350, up nearly $1,000 from the prior school year. view article

Socorro ISD says it charged taxpayers more than it should have last year. In a letter sent out to faculty, the district said that its state conservators found the Maintenance and Operations tax rate exceeded the maximum rate allowed by the Texas Education Agency. "For a $246,000 home (with the homestead exemption) this equates to approximately $24 total for the year," the district went on to explain in its letter. " We are not alone in this situation; 10 districts in the state are in a similar scenario this year and last year 100 Texas school districts also faced this issue." view article

COLLEGE STATION (Texas Real Estate Research Center) – Texas’ housing market slowed in February after persistently low mortgage interest rates contributed to record sales in the existing-home sector the previous month. "Sales activity was greatly hindered by February’s unseasonably wintery weather that caused power outages and water disruptions across the state," said Dr. Luis Torres, research economist for the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. Existing-homes sold through the Texas Multiple Listing Services declined 16 percent from January, drawing even with year-ago levels. Despite slower sales, the state’s existing-home inventory fell below 1.5 months in February. The number of new listings that hit the market declined for the second straight month to their lowest reading since April 2020, when the state was under a stay-at-home mandate. view article

Count on the Texas Legislature to come up with a painfully complicated and inefficient way to repeal a painfully complicated and inefficient tax. Lawmakers deserve praise for targeting the Texas Franchise Tax, but their methods are unsound. The franchise tax, also called the margins or business tax, ranks consistently as one of the worst taxes anywhere in the country. It was the convoluted response to the Texas Supreme Court declaring the public school finance system unconstitutional. Lawmakers had to lower property taxes to comply with the court order, so to find replacement funds they rewrote the franchise tax, what businesses pay for the privilege to operate in our great state. view article

The Dallas school board Thursday night voted against putting a tax ratification election before voters this fall. The proposed 13-cent tax hike would have given the district $100 million to fund early childhood education and early college high school programs. The district also wanted to expand a program that pays extra money to top teachers who take jobs in some of the district’s toughest schools. view article

Trustees of the Wylie Independent School District proposed a tax rate of $1.13 per $100 of property value for the 2016-17 fiscal year — a tax cut of 2.4 cents — and added more money to the proposed budget for teachers' salaries during Monday's regular board meeting. Trustees conducted their third of three workshops for the 2016-17 budget of $32.340 million and set a special meeting for Monday, Aug. 29, at 6:30 p.m. to receive comments from the public on the budget and tax rate and then consider approval. view article

School trustees in Kilgore began their budget-writing season Monday with an overview of what is and isn’t known about financing the 2014-15 school year. view article