WFISD Board of Trustees calls for Tax Ratification Election in June

WICHITA FALLS, TX (TNN) - On Tuesday, the Wichita Falls ISD Board of Trustees called for a tax ratification election.

A TRE is a special election called by a school district's Board of Trustees, asking voters to approve an increase above the current operating tax rate.

Elizabeth Yeager, the president of Board of Trustees said Maintenance & Operations covers a lot.

“It covers everything that we need to do to operate the district with the exception of our debt payments," said Yeager. "So, teacher salaries, transportation cost, and instructional material,” said Yeager.

If voters say yes to this, the district’s Maintenance & Operations tax rate will increase by $0.13, which the board will offset by lowering the district’s Interest & Sinking tax rate by $0.18. In the end, there will be a $0.05 drop in WFISD’s overall tax rates.

“I think this is a really smart thing for the school district to be doing,” said Yeager. “It will maximize the revenue amount that we receive from the state of Texas and reduce the burden on our local taxpayers and still pay for the things that we are paying for today. [We can] still pay for our debt and have some more money in our budget every year that we can then do other things for our students.”

“Right now, with our current debt payment that we have, our I&S debt payment, we pay 100 percent of that. By moving this money to the M&O side of the tax rate of WFISD we are now going to get the state to pay 60 percent of our debt and we only pay 40 percent of our debt because those state funds come back to Wichita Falls,” said WFISD Superintendent Michael Khurt.

Khurt said should the voters approve this, the October tax statement will reflect a five cent decrease for WFISD. Therefore the current tax rate of $1.22 will go down to $1.17.

The tax ratification election is set for June 15 with early voting to begin May 29. During early voting, voters will be able to cast their ballot at the Education Center or Sikes Senter Mall.

Click here, to learn more about this election.

Copyright 2019 Texoma News Network. All rights reserved.