With early voting ballots in shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m., Denton voters so far are showing their approval for Proposition A, a tax ratification election that will increase Denton ISD property owners' tax rate by 5 cents if it passes.
Fifty-five percent of early votes were in favor of the proposition. Of the nearly 19,500 ballots cast during early voting, about 10,700 are in favor of the measure.
Denton ISD’s current tax rate is $1.1569 per $100 assessed property valuation. The 5-cent increase would bring the rate up to $1.2069 per $100 property valuation.
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, Denton ISD 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. 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.
LUCINDA BREEDING-GONZALES can be reached at 940-566-6877 and cbreeding@dentonrc.com.
