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.
Trustees voted 8-1 on Monday to call what’s officially known as a voter approval tax rate election (VATRE) to get permission from voters to raise the tax rate beyond what the state says it should be.
School Board Vice President Kevin Foster was the lone dissenter. He said Texas has a budget surplus but “systematically starves public education.”
Foster pointed out that a successful VATRE would generate about $171 million in new revenue for Austin ISD, but the district would only keep $41 million. The rest would be subject to recapture, also known as the Robin Hood program, which was set up to send what the state considers excess revenue from property wealthy districts to those with low property values.
“When we vote for this tax rate election, what we are voting to do is to fill the coffers of the state to do things that don’t serve us,” Foster said.
Other trustees said while they understood Foster’s stance, Austin ISD needs financial help and fast. The district is currently staring down a $119 million deficit without a tax rate increase or other budget cuts officials plan on making.
“I’ll be voting in favor of [the VATRE] for a lot of the same reasons you’re voting against it,” Board Secretary Lynn Boswell told Foster. “That we have a state that is choosing to starve our public schools in a city that deeply values our public schools.”
Trustee David Kauffman said he also supports the tax rate increase but thinks it is important that the public ultimately decides whether to approve it.
“What I’m voting for today is an election to allow our voters in Austin to make that decision,” he said. “I’ve heard from enough people who oppose and I’ve heard from enough people who are in favor, to tell me that this is something that is, thankfully, a direct vote of our community.”
How large is the tax rate increase?
The Austin ISD school board is asking voters to increase the tax rate by 9.1 cents from nearly $0.86 to $0.95 per $100 of a home’s taxable value. District officials said this would mean that the owner of a home worth $553,493 would see their property taxes increase by an additional $34 per month.
According to the district, homeowners who have property tax exemptions because they’re 65 and older or have disabilities will not be affected by the tax rate increase.
School Board President Arati Singh underscored that Austin ISD will also make budget cuts and not just rely on property owners to shoulder the burden of the deficit. She said if the VATRE is successful, the district plans to cut $2 from the budget for every $1 it gets in revenue from the higher tax rate.
Pay increases for staff
If voters approve a new tax rate on Nov. 5, Austin ISD plans to use more than $17 million of that new revenue to increase pay for about 6,500 employees. If the VATRE fails, Austin ISD staff will get one-time incentive payments of $500 for full-time employees and $250 for part-time ones.
Members of Education Austin, a union representing Austin ISD employees, attended Monday’s meeting to show support for the VATRE. The group’s president, Ken Zarifis, said the Texas Legislature’s inaction on increasing funding for public schools has forced Austin ISD into this position.
“We must, regardless of what this state does or doesn’t do in this [upcoming] legislative session, we as a community must come together and say we love our schools, we love our kids,” he said.
AISD special education teacher Karen Reyes, who is part of Education Austin, said it was important to her to attend the meeting and advocate for the VATRE.
“At the core of this is: ‘do we trust our communities to take care of us like we take care of their students?’ I do,” Reyes said. “Because I firmly believe that the people of Austin, who have always had our back, know that this isn’t just us asking for money for frivolous things.”
Austin ISD parent Margarita Acuña Mintzer has two children in elementary school and said teachers are counting on voters to support the VATRE.
“Go home, ask your children ‘how much do you think your teacher deserves as a raise?’ And I’m telling you they will give you the biggest number they can possibly find,” she said. “It’s time for the adults to do the right thing for our children.”
Other districts are in the same boat
The same night the Austin ISD school board called a tax rate election, Manor ISD trustees also voted to put a VATRE on the Nov. 5 ballot. That district is facing a nearly $21 million budget deficit.
Unlike AISD, the revenue Manor ISD hopes a successful tax rate election will generate is not subject to recapture. The district wants to use the $4.8 million it would get to offer all employees an additional 2% raise on top of the 1% included in the 2024-25 budget. The funds would also be allocated to fund new school police officers and social workers.
Last year, Pflugerville ISD and Lockhart ISD asked voters to approve new tax rates to help fund employee raises and cover costs. According to the Texas Association of Schools Boards, more than 50 school districts statewide called a VATRE in 2023.
