Elections 2022Forney ISD, San Antonio Bonds Pass While 12 of 16 Stadium Proposals Fail in May Local Election

The appearance of these proposals on ballots means each would increase taxes. Texas state law requires any property tax increases above the voter-approval rate — 2.5 percent for school districts, 3.5 percent for cities and counties — to be placed before the localities’ constituents. Because of how large most of these expenditures are, they require taking on debt, and the taxing authority to pay it off, which can span two or three decades depending on the borrowing stipulations.

During these bond elections, those supporting the proposals often market them as “not a tax rate increase” — “not a tax increase” if they’re less honest. Because of appraisal increases, especially in places of high population growth, it is possible to reduce or keep level the political subdivision’s tax rate while bringing in substantially more property tax collections.

On balance, these local bonds are approved more often than they are rejected but last November, for the first time in 10 years, more school bonds were rejected than approved.

Both in number and price tag, school districts accounted for the lion’s share of the bonds up for a vote on Saturday.

The six most expensive single propositions — localities can, and usually do, separate bond packages into more than one proposal — were all chalk, passing with substantial margins. The top-priced single proposition in Forney ISD, worth $1.3 billion, passed with 65 percent. Each of the City of San Antonio’s six items totaling $1.2 billion failed.

But the next three items from Sheldon, Little Elm, and Granbury ISDs all failed. The next largest, from Medina ISD, passed by seven votes and its second proposition failed.

Granbury ISD voters also rejected the other proposal, a $39 million item to pay for a stadium.

Klein ISD, which put forward four proposals totaling $1.1 billion, saw two pass and two fail. Its most expensive proposal, $843.8 million for new schools and renovations, passed while the extracurricular-focused items, an events center and a football stadium, both failed.

Red Oak ISD secured the rare golden sombrero, striking out on each of its four proposals, one of which was a football stadium.

Of the 16 stadium projects on school district ballots across the state, only four were approved. In total, $53.1 million out of the over $400 million proposed for stadium projects passed.

After failing by 55 votes last November, voters again rejected the Cameron County arena proposal, this time by 209 votes. The levy would have authorized the county to take on $33 million in debt to finance one-third of the stadium, to be paid by an increase in the county’s visitors taxes.

Turnout across the entire state for the May 7 election was 7.5 percent, and because of typical ballot fatigue, items lower on the ballots, like these bond proposals, often see even lower levels of turnout.

The full tallies of this election’s bonds have not yet been compiled by the Texas Bond Review Board.

See the full list of bond proposals that were on the May 7 ballot below.