UpdateUpdated at 12:30 a.m., Nov. 5
With ballots counted on Tuesday night, voters have approved Proposition A, a tax ratification election that would increase Denton ISD property owners’ tax rate by 5 cents.
In complete but unofficial results with all precincts reporting after midnight, about 53% of ballots cast were in favor of the proposition. Just under 33,000 ballots were cast, with nearly 17,500 in favor of the measure.
District officials had not released a statement by 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Denton ISD’s current tax rate is $1.1569 per $100 assessed property valuation. The 5-cent increase brings the rate up to $1.2069 per $100 property valuation.
The Texas Tribune reported Tuesday night that constitutional amendment propositions on property tax breaks proved popular with voters.
Across the state, voters were on track to approve raising the state’s homestead exemption, meaning the amount of a home’s value that can’t be taxed to pay for public schools, from $100,000 to $140,000. The amendment will whittle hundreds of dollars off the biggest chunk of the typical homeowner’s property tax bill.
And for homeowners who are above the age of 65 or who have disabilities, it looks likely they will see even bigger cuts after voters signed off on a separate amendment.
Businesses will also probably get a break on their property taxes. An amendment to exempt up to $125,000 of businesses’ inventory from being taxed by school districts, cities, counties or any other taxing entity looks like it will pass easily.
Denton ISD has said that homeowners in the district who qualify and apply for the homestead exemptions will probably see their property tax bills go down, even with the 5-cent tax increase.
Like its peer districts across the state, Denton ISD has spent each school year since the 88th legislative session operating on deficit budgets.
The deficits are rooted in post-pandemic inflation, years of enrollment growth and state lawmakers’ reluctance to increase per-student funding. Legislators didn’t increase the basic student allotment in 2023, when the state House gridlocked over school vouchers.
Earlier this year, legislators increased the allotment, but at a lower amount than Texas superintendents and school board members campaigned for.
According to Denton ISD, the proposed tax rate increase would generate an additional $26 million annually for the district’s daily operations, including teacher and staff salaries, safety and security, and student programs and enrichment.
This school year, Denton ISD is operating with a $15 million budget deficit.
In the run-up to the election, leaders said the district has already “pulled the other levers” to cut their expenses over three years of deficit budgets.
It has left 250 positions open. As teachers and administrators have retired or left the district, their jobs have gone unfilled. Some departments have been restructured, shuffling teachers and administrators into different jobs, and most full-time district employees have taken on additional work.
The district has increased class sizes, applying for waivers to bump up the number of students permitted in kindergarten through fourth grade. Without a waiver, the Texas Education Agency caps the number of students in elementary school at 22 per class. In the fifth through 12th grades, the state doesn’t cap class sizes. However, in some core classes, such as literature and science classes, adding three to four students per class spikes the workload of teachers when it comes time to grade course projects and papers.
Two years ago, the district received 33 waivers from the state to increase the number of elementary school students in classes on some campuses. This year, the district already has 74 waivers. The district has left more than 30 specialist positions open, and those positions are for reading recovery and math intervention. Some campuses no longer have academic support specialists. And some specialists are splitting their time between campuses.
How the increased funds would be spent
The funding generated by the tax hike would be split into three categories. The district would spend $16 million for teacher and staff support, recruiting and retaining teachers and filling some of the suspended full-time positions.
The district would use $5 million to fund the requirements of House Bill 3 passed in the 88th legislative session. The law requires public schools to staff every campus with an armed officer. The law allows schools to hire contractors, use armed teachers or staffers, or hire additional school resource officers. The law wasn’t fully funded, leaving many districts on the hook to fund compliance.
The district would use the remaining $5 million to pay for student programs and enrichment. Specifically, the funding would pay for reading recovery, interventionists and bilingual support specialists.