Belt-Tightening In Frisco After Voters Reject Tax Hike
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FRISCO (CBS11) - The belt-tightening begins.
Frisco ISD leaders in the fast-growing Collin County suburb are working to fill a $30 million hole after voters rejected a proposed 13 cent tax hike last weekend.
"First and foremost, we have great respect for the decision," said Supt. Jeremy Lyon, "Our community weighed in and said this is how we want our school district to move forward and that's what we intend to do."
Still, Lyon admits that whittling down the list of 'proposed' cuts to actual funding decisions "will be a little painful."
Four new schools already under construction are on the list.
The schools are being built with money from a bond package; but, Dr. Lyon says it costs about $20 million to open and operate them. Still, he says Frisco's "informed" voters were well aware of the budgetary considerations attached to the proposed tax hike vote—including salary and hiring freezes, reducing middle and high school coaching staff, reducing fine arts programs and charging a $300 per student participation fee for each fine arts and athletic activity.
"This whole issue of increased taxation has become so volatile," said Lyon, "and when you couple it with the property value growth—so this natural rise in property tax bills—and you couple it with a request form the school district: that was a very difficult story to tell. Why we needed it when you look at a tax bill and see it going up anyway."
Frisco school leaders say they asked voters for that 13 cent increase—which would have raised the tax rate to $1.59 per hundred dollar valuation—to make up for an expected shortfall in state funding next year. Lyon says state lawmakers aren't making good on a promise to replace revenue lost to property tax cuts a decade ago.
Meanwhile, district leaders are insisting that the vote was not a referendum on support for Frisco public schools.
"One thing this was not about, not about our teachers," said Lyon. "Voters on both sides of this issue love our teachers. And we're working really hard with them to help them understand that this vote was not about the work they do with the children of this community. They are very, very important to us."
School Board President Anne McCausland echoed those sentiments—calling the voter rejection of the proposed tax hike a 'pocketbook' issue.
"They love our schools, they love our teachers," said McCausland, "or they wouldn't have moved here and we wouldn't have continued to grow."
District officials are promising an open process for determining where the budget cuts should be made and say public input will be welcomed.
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