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Voters in the North East Independent School District have voted in favor of three of the district’s five bond propositions, giving the San Antonio school district access to most of the $495 million in bonds it had requested.
This was North East’s first bond election in 10 years. Unlike previous bonds, Superintendent Sean Maika said this bond is about maintenance, not new buildings.
“When you look at Proposition A, which is the bulk, it's about 81% of this bond. It's in things like HVAC, air handlers, chillers, boilers, cameras, things like that,” Maika said in an interview before early voting began. “There's really not new buildings and things, because we just don't need them anymore."
A state law passed in 2019 requires school districts to separate bonds into different propositions based on their purpose. Since then, propositions focused on stadiums and other athletic facilities have sometimes failed or passed with narrower margins than a district’s main propositions. This pattern held true for NEISD.
Proposition A, which covers general projects, is for $400 million. It includes roofs, plumbing, water heaters, and HVAC equipment. It passed with the highest majority: around 60%.
Proposition B is for technology and is $53.5 million. It includes laptops for staff, devices for students, printers, photocopiers, and audiovisual equipment. It also passed comfortably, with roughly 57% of the vote.
Proposition C is for athletics and is $29 million. It’s primarily for renovations at Blossom Athletic Center, including Littleton Gym, the tennis center, the soccer fields, and the baseball fields. It also includes lighting at various athletic facilities and turf at the Judson Road softball fields. It passed narrowly with just over 50% of the vote.
“Littleton Gym was built in '68 and we've never done any upgrades to it. And so, the facility steering committee picked it because all of our students in the district use it at one point or the other,” Maika said.
Proposition D is for stadiums and is $9.7 million. It would have provided updates for the Comalander and Heroes Stadiums, including turf, restrooms, and concessions. However, it failed to pass, with roughly 53% of voters voting against the measure.
Proposition E is for the natatorium at Blossom Athletic Center and is $2.3 million. It would have replaced the roof and windows at the small pool and installed a de-humidification system, but it narrowly failed, with just over 50% of voters voting against the measure.
Maika said the impetus for looking into a new bond was an HVAC that broke down at Madison High School in 2021. After that incident, district leaders began looking for a firm to conduct a facility assessment so NEISD would have a list of future maintenance needs.
“Because we have a dashboard, the taxpayers of North East will never pay for it again,” Maika said. “Because as we fix things, it just moves it down in priority.”
After the facility assessment was complete, the district created a facility steering committee, which came up with a recommendation for this year’s bond.
A full list of the projects the bond will be used for, filtered by campus and by proposition, can be found on the district's website.
Bond elections ask voters for permission to sell bonds and maintain tax rates high enough to pay them off.
Maika said NEISD will be able to pay for this bond without raising the Interest and Sinking (I&S) tax rate, which is used to pay off debt. However, in 2019 the state also began requiring ballot language to say they are tax increases in all bond elections, even if the tax rate won’t increase.
The district’s current I&S tax rate is $0.30 per $100 of value.
“We've actually lowered the Interest and Sinking side of our tax rate, or the bond debt side, six times since 2015. But what I explained to people is you're not feeling that in your taxes because property evaluations are skyrocketing,” Maika said.
Still, Maika said NEISD is doing everything it can to save the taxpayer money by refinancing debt and paying it off early.
Texas school districts have two property tax rates: the I&S rate for bonds and the Maintenance & Operations, or M&O, tax rate for daily operations.
NEISD’s combined tax rate was just over $1 per $100 of value last year and is projected to be $0.9474 per $100 of value this year. The state automatically compresses the M&O tax rate as property values rise.
