The Denton ISD school board voted Tuesday night to put a property tax rate increase, known as Proposition A, on the Nov. 4 ballot.
District leaders had some good news, though: The average property owner should still end up paying less in taxes even if voters approve the increase.
If the voter-approved tax ratification election passes, the 5-cent increase in the tax rate would generate an additional $26 million in revenue for Denton ISD, which would bring relief to the deficit budget the board approved last month.
When the budget was first approved, it came with a stinger: a $19 million deficit. After Texas’ recent legislative session increased funding, that deficit dropped to $15 million.
A tax ratification election is a special election that lets voters decide whether to approve a tax rate higher than the rate set by the Texas Education Agency. It affects only the maintenance and operations portion of the overall school tax rate, which means it can’t be used to pay for new construction projects.
If voters give Denton ISD the green light, district officials say, the estimated impact for a home valued at about $298,000 — the average taxable value in the district for 2025 — would be a decrease of $16.03 per month when compared to the Denton ISD tax bill for a home valued at about $327,500, the average taxable value in 2024.
That’s because the district calculated that number using an additional $40,000 homestead exemption, which voters are also being asked to approve on the November ballot. Denton ISD officials expect voters to approve it.
Denton County homeowners have seen steady increases — and sometimes a big jump — on their home values. Combined with the current $100,000 homestead exemption, the district says, these measures would lower school property taxes for qualifying homeowners.
Denton ISD’s current tax rate is $1.1569 per $100 property valuation.
“You have all these property values. You have all these market values. You have all these exemptions taken off of that, and it’s divided by the average number of properties,” said Jennifer Stewart, the director of budget for Denton ISD. “So just know that a taxpayer may or may not fall into this category. Everyone’s going to have to calculate their own bill.”
School board members know local taxpayers are allergic to tax hikes, so they were careful to bring up the most likely result of an approval of Proposition A: Voting for the 5-cent tax rate increase would still leave most property owners with a lower tax bill.
“If we were to increase the tax rate that 5 cents, the average homeowner would still come out ahead by $192 over what they pay in taxes last year, so they wouldn’t be burdened with additional taxes even if we went for that 5-cent tax?” school board President Barbara Burns asked.
“I think that’s fair to say, but I would just caution by the numbers, here, according to the average tax rate, a home of this amount would produce the savings,” Stewart said.
Superintendent Susannah O’Bara said she has been very cautious when running the numbers with locals and administrators.
“I’ve been very, very careful to say that because we’re working on an average home value, right? And it’s hard to navigate because [of], depending on parts of our county, what your value may be doing,” O’Bara said. “So we don’t want to say it will definitely produce less of a tax burden, even if the rate goes up, because it’s going to depend on many different values, which of course we have no control over.”
Denton ISD seemed to hold off on asking taxpayers for an increase over the last two years, while several neighboring districts put tax ratifications on the ballot. Compared to neighboring and peer districts, Denton ISD’s maintenance and operations tax rate is lower, and among Denton County school districts, Denton ISD’s maintenance and operations tax rate is the lowest.
O’Bara said the district fielded some question about why school leaders pumped the brakes. Questions even came from the 1925 Committee, a community-based group the district assembled to recommend priorities — most likely in the form of program cuts — in anticipation of the 89th Legislature passing a budget that wouldn’t meet the needs of Texas students. (The name “1925” signified starting the school year in ’25 with a basic allotment at the level state lawmakers last increased it in ’19.)
“It felt very premature,” O’Bara said. “We had a whole legislative session still ahead of us, and were very hopeful of the outcomes for that. And I would say I remained very hopeful to the bitter end. It was like, ‘Please, it’s going to work out. It’s going to work out.’ Well, in fact, it is where it is now.”
The state Legislature did increase the basic allotment, which is the amount of money the state pays the district per student per school year. But the increase was less than what educators pleaded for, and lawmakers also approved a voucher program, which will give families more money per student to attend private or religious schools than public schools get per student.
O’Bara said the district has already left 300 teaching positions open, cut expenses and dipped into savings to give teachers and staff members one-time raises prior to this year’s legislative session. There aren’t many levers to pull for districts to increase revenue other than increasing enrollment and daily attendance.
O’Bara said the 1925 Committee members saw that. They kept bring up the idea of a tax ratification election, even as they learned more about school finance.
“The community members, that 75 to 80 members that came and participated, they were asking us all fall, but they were educated on the process. It is complex, but once you understand that, you start to see that you simply have no other choice,” O’Bara said.
Board member Tanya Wright pointed out that the district hasn’t filled positions that support teaching, such as reading interventionists, and O’Bara said the district didn’t fill open jobs for bilingual education teaching and other specialists.
“To put it [in the context] of my personal home, everything is more expensive,” Wright said. “I’ve already personally stopped eating out as much. But we’re past the ‘I’m not eating out so much,’ or ‘I’m not buying name-brand groceries.’ We’re to [the point of] ‘I’m keeping the lights on or the water on.’ That’s where we’re at, right?”
Stewart said that should the voters approve the ratification, the district is still eligible for what’s called “recapture,” which is a state law allows lawmakers to take funds from property-rich school districts for disbursements to districts without much valuable property.
The last day to register to vote in the November election is Oct. 6.