Texas school districts have until 5 p.m. Aug. 17 to place a tax-rate increase or a bond package on the Nov. 3 ballot, and over the past week several of the state’s largest districts have done exactly that — the first broad test of whether voters will pay more for schools one year into the Legislature’s rewrite of the school funding formulas.
Aug. 17 is the 78th day before Election Day, and under Section 3.005 of the Election Code it is the last day for local governments other than counties to order an election held with the November statewide vote, according to Election Advisory 2026-21 published by the Texas Secretary of State. A district that misses it waits until 2027.
What is on those ballots matters to homeowners who have watched city and county tax bills climb this summer. School taxes are the largest single line on most Texas property tax bills, and a district cannot raise its operating rate past a state-set ceiling without asking permission. That vote is formally a voter-approval tax rate election — in plain terms, a ballot measure asking residents to approve a rate the state would otherwise cap.
The ceiling itself was fixed twelve days ago. In an Aug. 5 letter to school administrators, the Texas Education Agency set preliminary compressed tax rates for 2026 and put the state maximum at $0.6254 per $100 of taxable value. Districts may adopt that rate plus, in the letter’s words, “the greater of: five golden pennies; or the number of Tier Two voter-authorized enrichment pennies levied in the prior year; and the current debt rate.” Anything above that requires an election. Districts had until Aug. 15 to appeal to Amy Copeland, the agency’s chief school finance officer, with final determinations due no later than Aug. 31.
Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, the state’s third-largest district, voted 6-1 on Aug. 10 to ask voters for 12 additional operating pennies alongside a four-part bond package, according to Community Impact reporter Ella Barnes, who reported trustee Christine Kalmbach as the lone no vote. Districts may raise the operating rate as much as 17 cents above the state threshold; five of those pennies need no election, and the remaining 12 do. If every measure passes, the district projects a net increase of about nine cents, because a three-cent reduction in its debt rate would offset part of the operating increase. Cy-Fair has cut about $94 million from its budget since the 2024-25 year and still projects an $80.9 million shortfall, Barnes reported.
“It does not escape any of us that affordability is an important consideration during these times, which is why we are going to the community for a tax increase plan, and it isn’t really something we all relish,” trustee Justin Ray said, according to Community Impact.
In Bryan, trustees called an election to move the operating rate from $0.6769 to $0.6968, which the district estimates would raise $5.5 million a year, KBTX reporter Ashley Bowerman reported Aug. 10. On a home with an average taxable value of $210,000, the district put the cost at roughly $42 a year. Homeowners 65 and older whose taxes are frozen would see no increase, and the district said its rate has fallen 30 percent over the past decade.
McKinney ISD trustees sent voters five measures — a rate increase plus a $500 million bond split into propositions of $430.95 million, $62 million, $4.5 million and $2.55 million, according to the district. McKinney says its total rate will still land 3.79 cents below last year’s, and that a $23 million deficit in 2024-25 has been narrowed to about $6 million through cuts and by repurposing buildings to save $3 million a year.
“McKinney ISD has spent the last two years reducing our budget and finding ways to save money before going to the voters,” Superintendent Shawn Pratt said in the district’s announcement.
Two of those figures show why districts keep returning to the ballot rather than to Austin. McKinney values its rate proposition at about $4.1 million a year “after recapture” — the state program that redirects money from property-wealthy districts, which the Dispatch has reported fell below $2.3 billion this year as House Bill 2 enlarged the basic per-student allotment. Bryan, by contrast, notes its $5.5 million is not subject to recapture at all. The same penny is worth different amounts in different districts, and both boards had to explain that to voters.
No state agency publishes a running count of how many districts order these elections, and none was available Aug. 17. The number will be known when county clerks post ballot notices by Oct. 13.