The board first discussed the items during its Aug. 19 workshop meeting.
Tax rate
The adopted $1.1546 tax rate is 0.2% lower than last year, as previously reported by Community Impact, and reflects $0.6669 for maintenance and operations and $0.4877 for payment of principal and interest on debts.
Chief Financial Officer Randy Rau said the district has decreased the overall rate by a little over 38 cents over the past seven years, but this year’s decrease has been the lowest.
“There is a max tax effort that you have to have, per state law,” Rau said. “Part of the calculation of the tax rate is now really in the hands of the TEA. Although this is one of the more important decisions that the board makes, the board is kind of taken out of some of setting the tax rate when it’s all said and done.”
Despite a lower tax rate, certified property values in Hays, Caldwell and Travis counties have increased. Agenda documents show last year’s property values totaled $17.87 billion. Values were nearly $19.5 billion this year, an 8.83% increase.
Accountability system litigation
The trustees also unanimously approved a legal services agreement to join a litigation regarding the TEA’s A-F Accountability system.
The litigation centers around the agency’s system of scoring the academic performance of districts and schools, as previously reported by Community Impact, and over 60 Texas school districts have joined.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit stated that changes to the system could make it “mathematically impossible” for schools to receive an “A” rating, and that artificial intelligence being used to grade the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, could impact the test’s validity and reliability.
“The Legislature adopted a strong A-F framework to help improve the quality of student learning across the state, give parents a clear understanding of how well their schools are performing and establish clear expectations for school leaders so they can better serve students,” a TEA spokesperson previously said in a statement.
Trustee Vanessa Petrea said that “never in the history of the STAAR test” have scores decreased across the state for a second year.
“It’s very clear that something happened at the state level with our data,” Petrea said. “... I want to make sure people know we’re not joining this lawsuit to skirt our accountability. ... This is about, I think, clearly there’s a narrative at the state that they want to make sure public schools look bad, and it’s working out for them. We’re going to be all about accountability when it is done right and fair and someone looks into why the data was so skewed this year.”
