A group of residents are running a “Vote No” campaign against Round Rock Independent School District’s nearly $1 billion bond package.
In August, the school board voted 5-2 to place a $998 million bond proposal on the November ballot. With interest, the bonds would cost local property taxpayers $1.5 billion—55 percent more than voters will see on the ballot.
The proposal is divided into four separate propositions:
Proposition A seeks to allot $798 million ($1.2 billion with interest) to update roofs, floors, air conditioning systems, electrical, and plumbing. It also includes money for school paint jobs and the purchase of new buses.
The proposition would further dedicate resources to constructing a Career and Technical Education facility to expand classes like automotive shop, cosmetology, and dental assistance.
Proposition B contains an estimated $125 million ($160 million with interest) to update instructional technology and infrastructure to shore up the reliability and security of the district’s network.
Proposition C includes $8.6 million ($13.7 million with interest) for the district’s fine arts programs.
Proposition D would provide $65.9 million ($104 million with interest) to update the locker rooms, lighting, and scoreboards of existing athletic facilities and add artificial turf to competition fields.
The district currently owes $838 million in property tax-backed bond principal and interest debt on top of the nearly $1 billion proposal.
Residents are pushing a “Vote No” campaign to stop the school district from increasing its debt.
According to the campaign’s website, the district is shrinking, with the daily attendance reports showing only 20,536 students. The capacity for elementary students within the district is 30,256. The middle school capacity is 13,337 students—the district has less than 10,600—and the high school capacity is 16,464, with the district only having 14,973 students attending.
Additionally, the campaign website states that adding the new bonds to the district’s current debt would equate to $51,000 per student.
Don Zimmerman, participating in the campaign against the bond proposal, told Texas Scorecard that the bond is only meant to fund “a greedy partisan political machine.”
“The RRISD has seen enrollment declines for the last 4 consecutive years’ data is available. The District’s own demographer (Zonda, Q4, 2023) – chosen to give the most optimistic predictions – cites a “best case” of gradual enrollment increases over the next decade, which still end 4 percent below the peak in 2019, and in worst case enrollment continues to decline for a decade. Current facilities are about 70% utilized,” said Zimmerman.
The purpose of the $1.3 billion (including interest) bond tax election is to fund a greedy partisan political machine and its partisan cronies who profit from the obscene taxes and even more obscene sexualization and religious indoctrination of children while their academic achievements decline.
“Trying to satisfy a government school with more money is like trying to satisfy a wildfire with more trees,” he concluded.
Early voting begins Monday, October 21, and concludes Friday, November 1. Election Day is Tuesday, November 5.
