Question 1: Give us a breakdown of Austin ISD’s bonds

 

Bond Debt, Austin ISD

Year	Total
2019	$1.6 billion
2020	$1.5 billion
2021	$2.1 billion
2022	$2.0 billion
2023	$2.7 billion
2024	$3.7 billion

(Source: Texas Bond Review Board)

 

The district had $3.7 billion in bond debt as of the end of last year. That’s over $50,000 per student.

 

Only two-thirds is to repay the principal amount of the bond, which is the part that’s actually usable to help students. The other third is just interest that has accumulated over time: $1.2 billion of it

 

The oldest bond currently on the books is a 2015 bond that won’t be fully paid off until 2030. The new bonds issued last year won’t be paid off until 2049.

 

In the past few years the bonds have paid for roof and plumbing repairs, new security systems at school entrances, mental health spaces, larger renovations at 25 schools, more.

 

 

Question 2: How much bond debt do other schools in Texas have on their books?

 

If you add up every public school district in Texas, there’s over $202 billion in bond debt. More than a third of it is interest.

 

That’s up from $138 billion in bond debt five years ago.

 

There are six school districts with more bond debt than Austin. Dallas and Lamar (near Houston) have the most by far, almost $6 billion each. Then Cypress-Fairbanks, Northside, and Katy also have more than Austin.

 

Houston is the largest school district in the state but they have the 14th most bond debt ($2.5 billion).

 

Prosper ISD has almost as much bond debt as Austin, even though Prosper only has about one-third as many students.

 

 

Question 3: Do other states have a similar amount of bond debt for their schools?

 

No. Texas taxpayers are spending much more on school bonds compared to other states.

 

As of 2022, one third of all school bond debt for the entire United States was held by Texas ($157 billion out of $450 billion). And since then we’ve seen Texas schools’ bond debt increase by $50 billion, so the ratio now is likely even higher.

 

There are just over 13,000 school districts in the U.S. 4,000 of them have bond debt, and 909 of those are in Texas.

 

 

Question 4: So why are Texas schools issuing more bonds than other states?

 

A big factor is probably Texas’ recapture system for school funding. We talk about that a lot: public schools in Texas are only allowed to keep enough of their local property taxes to have $6,160 per student. If they have more, they have to pay it to the state to be redistributed to less wealthy districts. In Austin, 53% of the school property tax you pay goes to other school districts, not Austin ISD.

 

That benchmark of $6,160 per student hasn’t changed since 2019, even though inflation has gone up in that time. A bill Gov. Abbott is expected to sign soon will increase it by $55, not the $1,300 school officials said they needed to keep up with inflation.

 

So if schools want to keep the same amount of services for students, they’ve had to issue more and more bonds. Recapture does not apply to bonds. When a school district issues a bond, they get to keep 100% of the money.

 

Most Austin taxpayers are probably happier spending money on bonds than school property taxes - the money will go to your own kids’ school instead of other cities - but $3.7 billion is still way too much debt for the district to be carrying on its books.