Why Now; Why Not Wait?
Early voting for the upcoming bond election is April 20-28 and the election will be held on May 2. There have been several comments asking why the school is pushing for a bond this year rather than waiting a year or two into the future. There are several reasons why waiting is not the best option for the school or the community. If our community approves the bond, the project will likely take 3 years to complete. The reason it will take that long to complete the process is because the board has to give final approval to site location as well as the layout of the school, architect plans have to be developed and approved (9-12 months), the bid process for each part of the job have to be put into place, and this before actual construction begins. There are some parts of the plan that can be started earlier, but the project will take at least 3 years to complete once it is approved. So, putting the bond off another 6 months, a year or 2 years, will only push the completion date off as well as leaving students in the current building 4-6 more years.
Also, pushing the bond off will only cause the construction costs to continue to rise. Beginning in 2020, construction costs skyrocketed during COVID 19 and have not fallen back to pre 2020 levels. Currently construction costs are rising an estimated 1% per month or between 10% - 12% per year. Delaying the passage of the bond, will only cause the project costs to escalate during the period of waiting. Hereford ISD only has a certain amount of space on the I & S portion of the tax rate with which to work. This limits the amount of money that we can request from the community during a bond election. The reality is that waiting will cause the project to cost more and perhaps limit what could be added to the new high school.
Additionally, Governor Abbott recently released his platform for overhauling the property tax system in Texas should he be reelected Governor. During the next legislative session, his plan is to totally eliminate school property taxes for homeowners completely, require a cap on local spending limits for schools, county, and cities, require a super majority of 67% for all voter approved tax increases, empower voters to roll back taxes, and create predictability for appraisals and cap appraisal growth. These proposals, if approved by the legislature, will go into effect in September 2027 after the legislative session ends. The effect of this platform will be felt by cities, counties, and school districts. One of the things he has been saying more and more as he pushes for reelection is, “schools need to learn to do more with less”. The reality is that all of us, schools, cities, and counties will all have to do more with less if the legislature passes his property tax platform.
There are several in the community who have asked why we cannot wait until the projected data centers arrive in our county (2-3 years). The reality is that there is no guarantee that data centers will come into Deaf Smith County. However, should they come, one thing to remember is that school districts can no longer enter into Chapter 313 agreements with businesses or companies. This means that the school will not be able to create an agreement to receive direct payments from the data centers over a 10-15-year period because the state has already removed those opportunities from school districts. The district will benefit because the property valuations will definitely rise which will allow our tax pennies to rise to the level of our valuations. Should the data centers eventually come to Deaf Smith county, both the M&O and I&S will be lowered which will lower the overall tax rate.
I know that you may have other questions that have not been addressed so I would encourage you to set up a time to come by the office so that I can answer your questions with factual information. Also, I would encourage you to come to our last town hall meeting on April 20 at the Civic Center starting at 5:30 pm (meal) and or 6 pm (meeting start time).