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During the regularly scheduled board meeting on February 13, 2023, the Calallen Independent School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved calling a School Bond Election for May 6, 2023. The proposal was developed by a Bond Planning Committee consisting of 47 community members from across the district, including parents, community and business leaders, representatives from school and civic organizations, staff, and board members.
Calallen ISD Bond Order and Notice of Election
Calallen ISD Bond 2023 Sample Ballot
Calallen ISD Certificate of Order
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Town Hall Meetings
Message from the Superintendent
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The below estimated tax impact for each proposition is based on an average home value in Calallen ISD of $175,506. While the value of your home may be more or less than the average, this amount was used to help you better understand the average impact for all homes in the school district. The total impact of both propositions combined would be $5.85 per month, or $70.20 per year, for the average home.
Property owners ages 65 and older who have applied for and received the Over 65 homestead exemption will see NO TAX increase over their frozen dollar amount as a result of these bonds. In 2019, Texas Legislators passed a new law as part of HB 3 that requires all bond propositions for any school district to have the phrase ‘THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE’’ on all ballot language for bond propositions. Due to this requirement, all voters will see this statement on the official ballot language, even when there is no tax rate increase as a result of the bond because of your over-65 homestead exemption.
PUBLIC SCHOOL TAXES & CISD TAX RATE HISTORY
Public school taxes involve two figures, which divide the school district budget into two “buckets.”
- The first bucket is the Maintenance and Operations budget (M&O), which funds daily costs and recurring or consumable expenditures such as teacher and staff salaries, supplies, food, gas and utilities. Approximately 84 percent of the district’s M&O revenue goes to teacher and staff salaries.
- The second bucket is the Interest and Sinking budget (I&S), also known as Debt Service, and that is used to repay debt for longer-term capital improvements approved by voters through bond elections.
Proceeds from a bond issue can be used for the construction and renovation of facilities, the acquisition of land and the purchase of capital items such as equipment, technology and transportation. I&S funds cannot by law be used to pay M&O expenses, which means that voter-approved bonds cannot be used to increase teacher salaries or pay rising costs for utilities and services.
Due to the 86th Texas Legislative Session and House Bill 3, Calallen ISD has experienced M&O tax rate compression since 2018. During this time period, the M&O tax rate dropped from 1.17 per $100 assessed value down to 0.9429 per $100 assessed value, an overall 21.7 cent tax rate decrease. On an average home value in Calallen ISD of $175,506, the 21.7 cent tax rate decrease results in an estimated tax savings of $380.85.
PROPERTY VALUES & SCHOOL FUNDING
The taxable appraised value of a property is not related to or impacted by a bond proposition or the property tax rate. The appraised value of property is determined by a separate entity called an appraisal district. For Calallen ISD, this is Nueces County Appraisal District. The property tax rate is set by a taxing entity, such as CISD.
Due to the 86th Texas Legislative Session and House Bill 3, Calallen ISD is subject to property tax compression. This means that as appraised values increase, M&O property tax rates decrease providing property tax relief to taxpayers. As seen in the section above, CISD's property tax rate has experienced an overall 21.7 cent tax rate decrease due to this legislation and overall property value growth within our District boundaries. If you are experiencing higher property taxes, this is due to the growth of your appraised value (controlled by Nueces County Appraisal District), not the tax rate set by CISD Board of Trustees.
Additionally, Calallen ISD does not receive more funding when appraised values and/or property tax revenues increase. The Texas school finance system, under which the state sets the M&O portion of CISD’s property tax rate and provides school funding, is setup such that an increase in property tax revenue to the District does not garner an increase in school funding. Instead, it is a balancing act, and an increase in property tax revenue is offset by a decrease in state school funding, resulting in no additional funding for the District.
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Calallen ISD has actively deployed various debt management practices, including bond refunding and bond defeasance programs, which aim to lower interest rates and paydown bond debt prior to scheduled maturity to reduce the cost of voter approved bonds. Such actions have resulted in $14.95 million of direct savings for District taxpayers since 2010.
The state annually analyzes districts’ fiscal responsibility through the FIRST rating system to distinguish the level of a school district’s financial performance based on certain uniform criteria. Calallen ISD was assigned a FIRST Rating of “Superior Achievement” and the District’s score was 100 out of a possible 100. Click here for more information on Calallen ISD's FIRST Ratings.
