South by SouthWest’s educational conference and festival, SXSW EDU hosted dozens of panels last week, including one called “The Art & Science Behind Passing a Bond Election.”
The panel discussed the recent drop in the approval rating for school bond propositions, which fell to an all-time low of 61% last November. Panelists discussed options to get more voters on board with the bonds.
“This November was a wake-up call that said, ‘Things you’re doing aren’t working,'” commented panelist Chris Huckabee, CEO of Huckabee, Inc., an architecture firm specializing in designing school bond projects.
School bond propositions typically ask local voters to approve new debt for districts to spend on new schools, building renovations, and athletic facilities.
Local property taxes then repay the new debt created by a successful bond passage with interest. This means all school bonds that pass increase local property taxes, even if the district’s property tax rate does not change.
Tax bills also go up if property values increase, as they do when school bonds are passed, without an official rate change.
When voters approve a bond proposition, they also approve all the extra taxes needed to repay the debt. Districts can then raise the tax rate without additional voter approval.
For years, Texas voters were promised by school district officials that school bonds would not raise property taxes.
However, in 2019, Texas passed House Bill 3, which requires school bond propositions to include language on ballots confirming that any new bonds would increase property taxes.
All school bond propositions now include language on the ballot stating, “This is a property tax increase.”
According to James Quintero of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the statement added to the ballot by HB 3 “helps voters understand that there’s a connection between the approval of new debt and the imposition of new taxes.”
“One generally follows the other, no matter what others claim,” Quintero told The Dallas Express.
Still, Huckabee and other proponents maintain that School Bonds do not constitute a property tax increase.
Huckabee blamed HB 3 for the drop in school bond proposal success, saying it is confusing to uneducated voters and makes parents angry.
Quintero offered another explanation for why so many school bonds are failing. Senate Bill 30, passed in 2019, also reformed the school bond proposal process by prohibiting school districts from placing single-item bond propositions on the ballot.
“School districts may no longer force voters to approve or reject one massive bond proposition packed with pork but must now put forward ‘separate ballot questions‘ that give voters choice on different categories of expense,” said Quintero.
According to Quintero, that “change enables voters to better decide what’s important and what’s not.”
But Huckabee says the approval rate of the school bonds suffers because the tax element is confusing for most voters. School district officials regularly tell voters that school bonds are not a tax increase. At the same time, the ballot itself clearly states that they are.
Huckabee suggested what he called a “new strategy” to avoid confusion: attach a marginal property tax rate increase to school bonds, but one so small that the voters would not care about the increase.
In Huckabee’s opinion, his proposal would solve two problems. First, it would remove the confusion caused by the wording on the ballot. Second, it would raise more money in the long run, albeit a minuscule amount.
According to Huckabee, he got the idea from a superintendent who told him they would never do another bond election without a tenth of a penny tax rate increase included. That way, they could tell voters the property tax increase noted on the ballot is true but would only cost them a dollar.
“That’s brilliant!” Huckabee said. “Rather than fighting this, let’s join them. Let’s just start taxing people.”
Mike Martindale, superintendent of College Station ISD, agreed with Huckabee.
“Next time, let’s just add [an additional] tax increase, so we’re not trying to explain it to people,” said Martindale.
Voters in College Station approved more than $78 million in bonds for renovations and technology in 2021 but voted against an athletic bond.
Tomball voters approved two bond propositions in 2021 totaling $495 million but rejected three smaller bonds for athletic facilities.
“We went out and told everyone, ‘It is not a tax rate increase, despite what it says all in caps [on the ballot],'” said Salazar-Zamora.
Huckabee and the two superintendents agreed that emphasizing trust and transparency should be prioritized.
Huckabee even alleged that State Senator Paul Bettencourt (R–Houston) admitted to him that the tax-increase ballot language is “political theater.” Still, Huckabee admits that Bettencourt said he would “stand by this all day because if you didn’t pass [school bonds], taxes would go down.”
