At a special called Board Meeting, the DeLeon ISD Board of Trustees voted to adopt a tax rate for 2007-08 that is $0.2592 per $100 of property value less than last year’s total adopted rate. The total adopted tax for the district is $0.9900. This includes $0.9630 for maintenance and operations of the district and $0.0270 for debt service.

By adopting this tax rate the district is striving to take full advantage of all available state funding for the district. The district will earn an additional $68,000 this year in state funding, even as the tax rate is lowered.
The district budget adopted by the Board does call for an increase in spending, but the bulk of that increase is seen in salary increases that are mandated for staff members by the state. However, even with the increase in spending, the total cost to the local taxpayer is reduced from $0.33 of every dollar spent in 06-07 coming from local property taxes to $0.27 of every dollar in 07-08 spent by the district being generated by local tax revenue.

“Through recent efforts of school districts to force the state to take responsibility for their obligation as mandated by the Texas Constitution, the state is once again becoming a major provider of funding for public schools,” noted DISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Mohundro. The concern, noted Mohundro, was whether or not the state will continue to fulfill its constitutional responsibility or force the local taxpayer to again start picking-up the state share as it did throughout the 1990’s and into the previous years.

In comparison to other school districts DeLeon’s total tax rate is one of the lowest in the area. Total tax rates as reported by other surrounding districts were as follows: Gorman $1.3070, Comanche $1.06, Dublin $1.2369, Ranger $1.04, Eastland $1.0167, and Stephenville $1.1920.

“It is very clear,” Mohundro noted, “that the DeLeon ISD Board has been very frugal in their management of the district’s resources and the taxpayers of the district should be appreciative of their diligence.”