Frisco ISD could call for a tax ratification election to raise its current tax rate of $1.04. In a joint meeting with the city of Frisco on Feb. 4, FISD Superintendent Jeremy Lyon presented information that could negatively impact the school district. “U.S. city leaders need to have a working knowledge and the ability to talk to citizens about the bind your school district is in regarding this thing called ASATR,” Lyon told city leaders. In 2006, the Texas Legislature made a promise that guaranteed that a school district would not lose revenue as a result of significantly reduced property tax rates. To do that the state enacted Section 42.2516 of the Texas Education Code to provide districts with payments of Additional State Aid for Tax Reduction, ASATR. Lyon said ASATR was to be a safety net for school districts like FISD so they would remain unaffected when the property tax rate was compressed in 2006. However in 2011 the state did not generate enough revenue to meet its obligation, and the 82^nd Legislature removed the safety net that resulted in cuts to programs in the 2012-13 school year as well as a scheduled elimination of source of funds in 2017-18. Lyon said by the 2017-18 school year FISD could lose between $30-40 million in ASATR funds. “We have a $400 million annual operating budget that means that 10 percent of our annual funding goes away,” Lyon said. “Where does that hurt us the most in terms of annual operating budget? Class size.” About 80 percent of the district’s operating budget goes to paying salaries, Lyon said. “When you have that size of a cut coming in one moment in time, you have to cut people and some of those people will be our teachers,” Lyon said. While this does not necessarily mean the school district will have to let teachers go, Lyon said it may be forced to move away from the small schools model as Frisco schools continue to grow the class size. The tax ratification election could help prevent this from happening, Lyon said.Lyon said the district is working on developing a budget that deals with the cuts; however, he said surrounding school districts have been successful “shoring up” by raising their tax rates. FISD has one of the lowest property tax rates among surrounding school districts at $1.04. Other school districts like Plano ISD and McKinney ISD are at $1.17. Lyon said FISD is on the shortlist of being one of the districts that could be most impacted by the ASATR cut. "We have to exert local control and we have to go to our voters and say, 'We need your help in supporting our school district by increasing the tax rate to support class size, programs and services to the kids,'” Lyon said. “We are not there yet [though]; this is going to unfold during the budget process and there are still a lot of decisions our school board has to make before we get there.” The board of trustees will review and make decisions on the budget in June.