District's proposed property tax rate lower than last year
The San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees discussed the proposed tax rate, voted to maintain the current officer structure of the board and received the end of year report from the School Health Advisory Council at the regularly scheduled meeting Monday.
SMCISD Business and Finance Director Michael Doyle stressed that the tax rates being discussed were only proposed, not set in stone. He said the proposed tax rate for the 2024-2025 school year is $0.6802 for the Maintenance and Operations rate, $0.2906 for Interest and Sinking rate for a total tax rate of $0.9708 per $100 of taxable value.
“Keep in mind that because of compression also because our certified property values won’t actually come to us until July 25 or thereafter, there is a strong possibility these tax rates at time of the option could be lower than what you see here this evening,” Doyle said.
Doyle showed the tax rate history going back to 2018. In 2018, the Maintenance and Operations tax rate was $1.06, interest and sinking tax rate was $0.3541 and the total tax rate was $1.41. In 2019, M&O was $0.99, I&S was $0.3239 and total was $1.31. In 2020, M&O was $0.9172, I&S was $0.2727 and total was $1.19. In 2021, M&O was $0.9016, I&S was $0.2691 and total was $1.17. In 2022, M&O was $0.8646, I&S was $0.2691 and total was $1.13. In 2023, M&O was $0.6802, I&S was $0.3113 and total was $0.9915.
During the item on board officer positions, SMCISD Trustee At-Large Miguel Arredondo made a motion to keep the same members in the same positions: SMCISD Trustee At-Large Anne Halsey as board president, SMCISD Trustee Single Member District-5 Clementine Cantu as board vice president and SMCISD Trustee Single Member District-2 Margie Villalpando as board secretary. The board voted unanimously in support of that motion to maintain the existing officer positions as is.
“I appreciate the confidence, and I appreciate the opportunity to serve again,” Halsey said. “I think that we have been working really well together as a board and as a team of eight, which is just a reflection of the good things going on in the district.”
Jennifer Vogel gave the presentation on the Student Health Advisory Council. Vogel said the SHAC is currently working on a sexual health education curriculum for older students with mental, educational and physical disabilities. She said that this coming year, the SHAC will review the current general sex education curriculum as well.
Adriana Guerrero, who also serves on the SHAC, said there are now behavioral screeners at each of the campuses.
“We’re really excited to have that beginning of year data and end of year,” Guerrero said. “Our principles also engaged in some of that work toward the end — those data digs to really talk about internalizing behaviors as well as externalizing behaviors.”
Guerrero added that the strategic partnerships have also been helpful such as the Core Four Partnership between Texas State University, SMCISD, Hays County and the city of San Marcos, which recently conducted a youth needs assessment.
“Our middle school and high school students answered questions involving levels of anxiety and depression,” Guerrero said. “It was really interesting to dig into the work and see that sometimes we, as adults, think one way, like it’s more direct mental health services that are needed while our youth are telling us, ‘we want more community engagement.’ And when we think on that, those are also indicators that can lead to mental illnesses or other differences with mental health. So it really does inform the work.”
Guerrero said the SHAC did a “deeper dive” on the needs assessment with Laura Gold, a suicide prevention specialist for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. She said there was also a thorough crisis procedure developed for use this year.
“We worked hard, our district did, in supporting [and] advocating for the wellness of our youth as well as making sure that we built that capacity amongst our administrators, our school psychologists, really anyone and everyone that works with our kids because it’s important to spearhead those efforts to understand the importance of keeping our youth safe,” Guerrero said, adding that the work with Gold allowed them to explore next steps “beyond the protocol.”
Guerrero said the SHAC also focused on bullying prevention, healthy teen dating and substance use prevention.
