On Tuesday, November 7, there will be a statewide election regarding 14 constitutional amendments.  For those of you that are registered voters in our school district, there also be two school district bond propositions on that ballot.  A committee of 47 Salado ISD parents, teachers, community members, and business owners met several times to develop our long-range facility plan, including these bond propositions.

The first bond proposition will be for $235,959,750 for the construction of a new high school, the renovation and expansion of our elementary school, conversion of our current high school to an elementary/intermediate school, HVAC replacement, and technology upgrades.  The second bond proposition will be for $34,489,530 for the construction of a new stadium for football, soccer, track, and marching band.  These amounts are based on estimated costs, however, if the bond proposals are approved we will have a competitive bidding process that all construction companies can participate in so we can get the best value for our school district.

Our current enrollment is 2,318 students.  This is a 72% increase from the 2012-2013 school year when our enrollment was 1,348 students.  This is the highest enrollment percentage increase of the 77 school districts in our region.  We are currently over capacity at our elementary school and our high school so we are using portable classrooms at those schools.  Our stadium was built in 1979 when our school district was in the 1A size classification and we are now a 4A school district.

Approval of these bond propositions will not increase our tax rate.  School district property taxes are comprised of two parts – Maintenance and Operations (M&O) and Interest and Sinking (I&S).

M&O taxes pay for the day-to-day expenses for our school district.  We have reduced the M&O tax rate several times since 2005 when it was $1.4220 per $100 of taxable value.  Our M&O rate is now less than half that rate ($0.6692 per $100 of taxable value).

I&S taxes can only be used for bond payments.  Our I&S tax rate is already at the maximum of $0.50 per $100 of taxable value.  Our existing bonds will be paid off within approximately ten years.  Thus, while approval of these November 7 bond propositions will extend our bond payments beyond that, it will not increase the tax rate.

Although approval of these bond propositions will not increase our tax rate, state law requires that the statement “THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE” must appear on the ballot as part of all public school district bond propositions, regardless of whether or not passage of the proposition would result in a tax rate increase.

Our school district’s total (M&O and I&S) tax rate this year is $1.1692 per $100 of taxable value.  This is the lowest tax rate for our school district in 34 years (since 1989).  This tax rate is also a reduction of 18.44 cents per $100 of taxable value from our tax rate of $1.3536 per $100 from this past year.  That reduction from last year’s tax rate will result in a savings of $184.40 in property taxes for every $100,000 of taxable value.

One of the constitutional amendments on the November 7 ballot will be to increase the homestead exemption from $40,000 to $100,000.  If this constitutional amendment is approved on November 7, it will save homeowners in our school district an additional $701.52 on their property taxes this year.

We will host town hall meetings during October to provide additional information and answer questions regarding the November 7 bond propositions.  You are also welcome to call me at 254-947-6905 or e-mail me at michael.novotny@saladoisd.org if you have questions regarding the bond propositions.

Michael Novotny

Superintendent

Salado ISD