Clear Creek Independent School District, if you are in the Houston area this is a well-known district. School not only plays a crucial role in our society for education but thrives off the community’s contribution. Many changes in the district are made by voting and currently there are disputes over the tax rates.
Over the past 7 years the tax rate for schools have decreased due to the increase of property taxes. The district has reduced their spending by eliminating over 140 staff positions that totaled $9 million in payroll which has been challenging for many workers along with families. The school budget and tax rates are separated into two parts: maintenance and operation (M&O) and interest and sinking (I&S). The money generated from each party is only able to be used for specific types of expenses, this is where the different propositions come into play. CCISD is asking those to consider all propositions, A, B, and C.
Proposition A, Voter- Approval Tax Rate Election (VATRE) is an election that is required by the state which asks voters to consider approving a modified tax rate to increase the revenue for many students devoted programs as well as the teacher and staff salaries. This proposition is solely focused on the maintenance and operation that includes salaries, utilities, and supplies.
Propositions B and C, Bond At-A-Glance. These propositions are interest and sinking that is focused on construction, repairs, and technology. This varies between elementary, intermediate, high school, and the support facilities. In proposition B they have $265 million that is spent between school infrastructure, technology infrastructure, life safety and security, priority repairs and replacement, co-curricular and extra-curricular, project management and bond costs. In proposition c, instructional technology has a total of $37 million that would be going to replace teacher and student computers, classroom projectors, school printers, career and technology equipment, special education assistive technology, library technology, and 3d printers. To get more details you can visit the election central at the CCISD website to see where exactly the money would go.
VATRE is important because ever since covid-19 the amount of money received per student for attendance has dropped. Inflation has gone up by 17% and made it hard for the district to buy and make changes for the various schools and faculty. If the VATRE passes this will have no impact on the M&O tax rate, in other words there will be no impact to that portion of your taxes. CCISD has one of the lowest tax rates in the region and the state, if this proposal is supported by the community it will continue to stay low. Early voting begins October 23rd and election day is Nov 7th.
