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Are divided Texas politics killing school bond packages?

Fort Worth and Allen are among districts that saw sports and fine arts proposals fail.

When Texas voters went to ballot boxes earlier this month, they collectively did something that’s traditionally been rare in recent years: They said “no” to public schools.

Voters rejected more school bond proposals than they approved for the first time in over a decade.

Statewide, only 47% of 110 district-led propositions passed on the November ballot. Several North Texas districts — including Fort Worth, Allen, Azle and White Settlement — felt that sting of rejection for some or all of their asks.

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The successes or failures of individual propositions are typically district specific, reflecting a community’s relationship with its local districts and leadership. Schools use money from bonds to pay for long-term needs, such as new campuses and facilities, renovations, land acquisition and computer and bus purchases.

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In Allen, voters roundly rejected $23.6 million for two propositions that would have upgraded athletic facilities at the middle and high school campuses.

Those propositions failed last year, too, as part of a $222 million bond campaign. The bulk of that request — $189 million for a number of capital improvements — passed by only 18 votes. An even larger bond proposition, $423 million, failed in 2019.

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Fort Worth ISD saw the bulk of its proposal in November — $1.2 billion largely aimed at renovations for all of the district’s middle schools — passed by fewer than 100 votes. Three propositions that would have been used for stadium, athletics and fine arts improvements all failed.

Broader factors could be at play given how many propositions failed statewide.

Concerns about the economy; frustrations over mask mandates and school shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic; and the current political maelstroms over the appropriateness of books and curriculum might all play a small role in impacting elections.

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But it’s hard to pin losses on any specific factor, said Sherri Greenberg, a former state representative who is now the Max Sherman Chair in State and Local Government at The University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Typically, local elections don’t get swept up into national hot-button issues, Greenberg said.

“People at the local level are like, ‘Well, I know where the money’s going,’” she said. “‘The feds? I don’t know what they’re doing with that money. Locally, I know it is going to my potholes or my school.’”

But signs suggest that might be changing.

Greenberg, who previously worked as the city of Austin’s capital finance manager, pointed to the Virginia gubernatorial race as a potential bellwether. Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin won the office, making national controversies about remote instruction and critical race theory into cornerstones of his statewide campaign strategy.

The largest bond package that failed this month was in Leander ISD, where voters in the fast-growing Austin suburb narrowly rejected a $722 million proposition for new schools. Leander recently has been a hotbed for controversy on the appropriateness of books in school libraries and on high school reading lists. In September, one of its trustees resigned after he felt the district didn’t move fast enough to remove questionable books.

“I cannot, and quite frankly will not support a superintendent or board that turns a blind eye to the incredible harm we are potentially doing to our innocent children,” trustee Jim MacKay wrote in his resignation letter.

On a separate front, changes in state law have made it harder for districts to find enough votes for certain items, such as stadiums, natatoriums and fine arts facilities.

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In 2019, the Legislature created two huge hurdles for school bond packages.

The first requires districts to have separate ballot propositions if they are asking for money to construct or improve stadiums with 1,000 or more seats, natatoriums, performing arts facilities, recreational facilities, teacher housing or technology improvements.

Leading up to 2019, several school districts — including Allen, Prosper and McKinney — had asked for millions of dollars for football stadiums as part of larger bond packages that included instructional and technology updates.

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The Legislature also put a provision in the state’s landmark school finance bill mandating that ballots in bond elections include the language “THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE,” even if districts don’t need to change their tax rates to pay for the bond issuance.

David Webb, director of the Texas Public Finance practice at investment bank Stifel and a former chief financial officer at Deer Park ISD in suburban Houston, said the financial industry thought there would be a significant change in passage rates after the creation of those laws.

“Frankly, that just didn’t happen,” Webb said. “In fact, last time school bond elections passed at a higher rate.”

Prior to this month’s vote, districts had held three elections since the laws went into effect at the start of 2020. Passage rates for bonds in those elections were all over 60%, with an 82% passage rate this May.

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Public schools need community support moving forward, said Kevin Brown, the executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators.

“Hopefully, this is not a trend, but just a blip on the radar,” Brown said. “But we want our schools to be accountable in our community. We want our communities to let us know what they want. And we respect that process.”

School districts hold the largest amount of outstanding debt ($93.1 billion) among types of local government, accounting for 37% of local debt as of the end of fiscal year 2020.

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

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The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.