Lost in the chaos of the contentious presidential election this week was a slew of consequential proposals that touched on funding for many of the nation鈥檚 13,000 public school districts鈥攎ost notably, for spending billions of dollars to upgrade and modernize buildings.
The biggest of all those proposals turned out to be a dud. The Houston school district put forward two ballot measures totaling $4.4 billion in bonds鈥�$3.96 billion for school construction and maintenance, and another $440 million for technology and equipment for classrooms. But roughly for the nation鈥檚 eighth-largest school district, which enrolls 190,000 students.
School districts often pay for major building projects by issuing bonds that they鈥檒l pay back with interest over a period of decades. Most states require some level of voter input for districts that want to proceed with bonds.
Nationwide, roughly 3 in 4 school bond elections pass in any given year. The Houston outcome may reflect that voters were wary of the enormous price tag. (In Kansas City, voters this week approved a much more modest $180 million in bonds for public school buildings after rejecting a similar proposal for $420 million this April.)
The rejection in Houston may also be a signal that residents are rebuking the state鈥檚 controversial stewardship of the district during the state takeover period that began in 2023.
The news for proponents of improving school buildings was rosier in California, where nearly 57 percent of voters approved $8.5 billion in bonds to fund construction projects for K-12 schools, plus another $1.5 billion for community colleges.
All kinds of factors can influence voters鈥� thinking on bond elections, including the wording of the ballot item, local sentiments toward the public school system, and trends in the cost of homeownership.
In Round Rock, Texas, for instance, well over half of voters totaling $932 million in bonds for replacing equipment, building classroom additions, and modernizing school buildings. But on the same ballot, 57 percent of voters rejected spending another $65.9 million on the district鈥檚 athletic facilities.
In some states, support from a majority of voters isn鈥檛 enough for school districts to get a bond approved. Ten states require a larger percentage of voters to support a bond.
Those percentages might not seem so different, but they can have significant effects. In Napa Valley, Calif., 53 percent of voters to fund facilities upgrades like fixing roofs and upgrading HVAC systems in schools. It was the that a majority of the district鈥檚 voters said they approved bonds for facilities. But in both cases, the vote totals in favor fell just short of the state鈥檚 required 55 percent threshold for approval.
In Idaho, school bonds need a two-thirds majority to pass. The Soda Springs district asked voters to approve a $55.1 million bond to be paid back over 20 years for a new high school.
The current building, , lacks a common area for students, doesn鈥檛 meet building code requirements for air circulation, fails to heat up sufficiently during the winter months, and forces students to eat lunch in a basement that some students with disabilities can鈥檛 easily access.
In exchange, taxpayers would have seen an annual tax increase of $300 per $100,000 of taxable property value. For a home worth $300,000, that amounts to a .
The district faced a steep uphill climb convincing 66 percent of its voters to support the increases. But in this case, the district would have lost out even in a state with a lower threshold for bond approval. Only 43 percent of roughly 2,000 voters approved the bond, according to .
Voters weighed in on a wide variety of school finance issues
Here鈥檚 a recap of few other school finance-related races of note:
A burgeoning movement against property taxes hit a roadblock on Election Day, as 63 percent of voters in North Dakota . School superintendents had warned that the move would cause chaos for their budgets, forcing them to rely on volatile state revenue to maintain basic services for their students.
In Georgia, school districts now have to decide whether to opt out of a newly passed referendum that caps property tax increases for homeowners at the annual rate of inflation. Sixty-three percent of voters . Districts and other local governments that want to reserve the right to impose higher tax increases to fuel their budgets can secure an exemption from the state policy if they apply by March 1.
Sports betting secured a razor-thin margin of support from voters in Missouri鈥�50.07 percent in favor, 49.73 percent opposed, . The amendment鈥檚 passage is likely to ramp up debate over whether state revenue from sports betting will end up benefiting schools in the long run鈥攊f such revenue materializes at all.
Winning for Missouri Education, the political action committee supporting the amendment, promoting passage of the amendment鈥攎ore than for any other ballot initiative in state history.
For the fourth decade in a row, Rhode Island voters . That means proponents of guaranteeing the right to an education and the right to school choice鈥攂oth mentioned in surveys of voters and interest groups as priorities for a constitutional convention鈥攚ould need to push legislation to amend the constitution to include those priorities, rather than getting it done during the rewrite process.
Two conservative ballot measures that would have dented available funding streams for schools in Washington state failed to gain traction among voters. Roughly 62 percent of voters passed on that generates state revenue for K-12 schools through companies purchasing credits to emit greenhouse gases. And roughly 63 percent opted to , which has drawn in $900 million of state revenue from wealthy residents since its 2023 inception. Much of that money went to K-12 schools.
