School finance is always a hot button issue during the Texas Legislative Session. However with rising fuel and consumer costs local school districts are not able to wait for the state to fix the situation and are being forced to raise property taxes.
The North Forest ISD will hold an election in December, in which they will voters to approve a rollback rate. Under state law the district raise the rate to $1.314339 per $100 valuation without voter approval.
During a pubic meeting scheduled for Sept. 22 the district is expected to ask for a property tax rate of $1.444339. The meeting will be held at the administration building board room at 7 p.m. This rate in broken down into $1.17005 for maintenance and operations and $.274289 for debt service. A comparison of last years budget to this year shows that the district, which has seen its share of financial difficulties, will have a 6.36% in its maintenance and operations budget. Its debt service budget, however, will increase by 12.92%. This budget will be used to pay the $69,163,755 the district has in bonded indebtedness. Documents obtained from the district show that the average property owner will see their taxes go up from $602.04 annually to $729.19 or $127.15.
North Forest is not the only local school district facing financial struggles. The Humble ISD will hold an election on Nov. 22, seeking voter approval for a rollback rate. Like North Forest, Humble is seeking a $1.17 per $100 valuation for maintenance and operations. This district said that since 2002 they have cut $27 million from their budget, but that rising costs, frozen state funding and enrollment growth has forced the tax increase.
Not all districts will need voter approval to raise their rates. Dr. Keith Clark, Assistant Superintendent for Finance for Aldine ISD, said that they plan to keep their M&O rate at $1.1338. The I&S rate of $.14362 is expected to go up by one cent.
These figures, Clark cautioned, are preliminary. The school district has not gotten the final tax rolls from the Harris County Appraisal District. Once this data is in, he said, the district will make their final recommendation for the next tax rate. The rate will then be published in the Northeast News.
The Lone Star College System has approved a 43-cent decrease in the tax rate, lowering it from $11.44 cents to $11.01 cents per $100 valuation. Cindy Gilliam, vice chancellor of business affairs and chief financial officer for Lone Star College System, said the decrease was made possible by the addition of a wealth of new property in the area.
The systems territory experienced a 50 percent increase in value from the growth, allowing the college system to lower the tax rate. The college system approved a $219.6 million budget for the 2008-09 year in August and promised taxpayers the tax rate of 11.44 cents per $100 valuation would either be approved as is or decreased. This is the second year in a row the college system has not increased either the tax rate nor the tuition rate.
