Editorial by the Williamson County Sun
Two months ago, Georgetown Independent School District trustees approved a six-cent increase for its 2026 tax rate, going from $1.0506 in 2025 to $1.1106 this year. If we voters approve the rate in the November election, the new rate will generate roughly $8.4 million a year for GISD’s 18 schools and 14,100 students.
The overwhelming purpose of Proposition A is to raise teachers’ pay. The fact is this: GISD is now part of a huge metropolitan area with hundreds of schools. The district does not compete in the local job market for teachers; it competes with those hundreds of schools in a regional market, and it must be able to compete with the best of these school districts, especially those that resemble Georgetown’s.
We have not been able to compete like this for a good many years. We are losing experienced teachers, principals and other key officials who make our schools run well to other districts because their pay beats ours. It’s as simple as that.
“The number one thing we can do for our students’ academic progress is place a high-quality teacher in every classroom,” GISD Superintendent Devin Padavil said in early September. “If approved, this tax rate election gives us the resources to pay our teachers and staff competitively while maintaining one of the lowest overall tax rates in the county. We believe that competitive pay and a supportive culture are the best ways to recruit and retain our teachers and staff.”
First-rate teachers inspire students to fall in love with learning, which almost always leads to richer, fuller, more satisfying individual lives and an abundance of well-educated and capable adults who will keep our communities and nation healthy and strong.
Acting now is critical
Several factors have made it urgent for GISD to ask voters to support higher salaries for its employees. These are the folks who make the schools work: teachers, counselors, nurses, maintenance workers, bus drivers and many others. GISD’s employee pay must come from its Maintenance and Operations fund for day-to-day operations. Salaries cannot be funded out of bonds, which pay for major projects, like building a school. Eighty-six percent of GISD’s entire budget goes to personnel.
Inflation has driven costs up for nearly everyone. State support for public schools has diminished over the last two decades. Competition from private schools and homeschooling has increased, especially this year after the state started giving vouchers to help cover the cost of private schools or homeschooling for families preferring those options.
Most pressingly, over the last year, slower population growth and higher interest rates on home purchases have led to a collapse in assessed property values. If GISD trustees had left its 2025 tax rate intact, the district would receive millions of dollars less in revenues. This level of tax revenue would not produce enough money to attract and hold top teachers.
This is why GISD’s trustees raised this year’s tax rate, which must be approved in a voter-approved tax rate election, or VATRE. The trustees were united in this decision.
Since 2023, GISD trustees have done several excellent things: they passed and operated with a balanced budget for two consecutive academic years, with another balanced budget year on the way. They cut expenditures by $8.3 million, including $1.4 million from the central office. They delayed opening two elementary schools that were not yet needed because of slower-than-projected population growth. (That was the biggest savings of nearly $4 million.) They changed bell and bus schedules, saving $800,000.
These were mostly not popular measures.
But it was necessary for GISD to eliminate expenditures not essential to an efficient and financially healthy school system. This summer’s independent efficiency audit reported key information: GISD directs 58.8 percent of its budget straight to classroom learning — considerably higher than the average of 10 regional peer districts. Only 2.3 percent of its budget goes to central office expenditures, compared to 3.1 percent, the state average.
In short, Georgetown Independent School District is a lean operation.
When you read the ballot describing GISD’s Proposition A, you will see that GISD is asking us voters to ratify an ad valorem tax rate of $1.1106 per $100 valuation for the current year. This will result in $17,479,755 in revenue — but $9.1 million of that $17.5 million must be returned to the State of Texas under a formula called “recapture.” In the end, if Prop A passes, Georgetown’s public schools will receive $8.4 million to be used primarily to increase teachers’ pay and maintain school facilities.
Passage of Prop A will not increase GISD debt.
GISD leaders have three main goals: 1) Boost teachers’ salaries 3.5 to four percent, with a minimum raise of $2,300, possibly more for experienced teachers. Other employees will get three percent raises. 2) Maintain balanced budget policy. 3) Protect outstanding student experiences: small classes, sports, music, school trips and the like.
How we got here
As Georgetown’s population growth led the nation in the early 2000s, GISD’s student performance on the state’s annual academic proficiency tests started slipping. Some years were good, others not so good. Fixes were attempted. But in 2018, the Georgetown community was shocked by STAAR test results, which showed students failing at disturbing rates.
Anguish and arguments followed. Ultimately the community spoke. It wanted to see the main emphasis for Georgetown schoolchildren to be mastery of academic studies. New trustees were elected and embraced that emphasis. In June 2023, after a vacancy occurred, trustees hired Dr. Padavil, then Taylor ISD’s superintendent, to lead Georgetown ISD.
Padavil visited with GISD employees and students on every campus. He held town halls and spoke with GISD taxpayers and civic groups. He guided a $649.5 million bond package to approval in May 2024. He campaigned for balancing the budget.
Most impressively, GISD turned the ship on student academic performance.
Two years ago, when STAAR test results came back, results were disheartening. Out of 18 campuses, only one, Richarte High School, earned an “A” rating. Eight campuses were given failing grades: four got “Fs” and four
got “Ds.”
This year, STAAR test results reported one “A” school (San Gabriel Elementary) but only two campuses were rated “failing,” both of these with “D” grades. Eleven of GISD’s campuses, including all three high schools, earned “B” grades. This was a
gigantic improvement.
It is only a beginning, but it is a promising sign. There is a lot of hard work ahead. That work absolutely includes strengthening our position with the best teachers available — those already teaching at GISD and those looking for work or higher wages. We want the best in our Georgetown kids’ classrooms, working their magic.
How will it impact taxes?
This year, Georgetown homeowners saw appraised values on their homes drop sharply. Because home values are now significantly lower, a six-cent increase in the tax rate will have a negligible impact on most taxpayers.
GISD offers an example. This year, the median value appraised home with a homestead exemption is $444,465. At the increased tax rate of $1.1106, the homeowner’s property tax will be $7.97 higher than last year’s.
Homeowners 65 and over with a homestead exemption will see no tax increase because their taxes are frozen.
The owner of a home worth $140,000 or less with a homestead exemption owes no school district property taxes.
Here’s another example: an Old Town rent house on Walnut Street with no homestead exemption. In 2025, the house’s appraised value was $552,341, though its market value was much higher: $627,959. (Appraised values of property were lowered in 2023 when the State Legislature passed a so-called “circuit breaker law” to address tax inequities when inflation causes property to quickly soar in value.) The GISD property tax of $1.0506 produced a tax bill of $5,802.
The 2026 appraised value of the house is $442,416 — considerably lower than last year’s value. But the tax rate on that house is higher, $1.1106, assuming we voters approve Prop A. The market value of the rent house is identical to the appraised value. GISD’s property tax on that house will be $4,913 — $889 less than last year’s property tax.
Conclusion: ‘Yes’ for Prop A
Should Prop A fail, the higher 2026 tax rate that school trustees approved in August will revert to the 2025 tax rate. The lower rate, combined with depressed property values, would leave Georgetown’s public schools holding a depleted purse. This would be unwise and a shame.
Prop A will provide revenue to a conservatively operated public school system that believes crackerjack teachers put jam on the peanut butter sandwiches for thousands of Georgetown ISD students. It will pay GISD teachers enough to keep them working here, rather than at some other school district, to the betterment of our children.
The Sun urges a vote of “yes” for GISD’s Proposition A, which, on average, will raise tax bills by roughly $8 per year but could mean the world for our children.
To learn more about the Williamson County Sun's history, visit www.wilcosun.com/news-georgetown/sun-launches-150th-volume.