This Saturday, May 2, Texans in cities, counties, school districts and special districts across the state will head to the polls for local elections that have the potential to carry a heavy price tag.
Tens of billions of dollars in new debt from bond proposals are on the ballot. While the sales pitches sound reasonable (“invest in our kids” or “Build a new community library”), the reality is that these bonds, if approved, will push local government debt even higher at a time when taxpayers are already drowning in it.
According to the Texas Bond Review Board’s latest figures, cities, counties, school districts, and special districts now owe roughly $552 billion as of fiscal year 2025.1 School bond debt alone has jumped to $236 billion.2 That’s money that will be extracted from Texas families through property taxes for the next 20 or 30+ years.
The Debt Machine Running on Autopilot
Local governments in Texas have, unfortunately, turned borrowing into a habit. General obligation bonds, backed by your property taxes, still require voter approval, but many other borrowing tools—revenue bonds, certificates of obligation, and tax notes—do not. Taxing entities have mastered the art of stacking new debt on top of old debt while barely staying within the state’s “50-cent test” at the moment of issuance.
This has resulted in debt growing far faster than population or inflation. Earlier Bond Review Board data already showed Texas with one of the highest debt-per-capita burdens in the nation. Now, with a total of $552 billion (and likely to far exceed that number soon), the trend is only accelerating. Every new bond package on the ballot adds another layer of long-term tax obligations that future homeowners and businesses will pay for, whether they supported, or “benefited,” from the projects or not.
Why “Tax Caps” Haven’t Fixed the Problem
Texas lawmakers have tried (and largely failed)3 to rein in property taxes with Truth-in-Taxation rules and voter-approval requirements for certain maintenance-and-operations increases. Those steps helped slow some growth, but they contain a massive loophole: they don’t apply to debt service. Local officials have simply shifted more and more spending into the debt column, issuing bonds to fund projects while staying “under the cap.” And yet it leaves families with higher bills over time.
Tens of billions more in new debt were issued last year alone, with tens of billions of dollars in bonds approved with only a handful of votes.4 As home values rise, even flat tax rates mean more money comes out of families’ pockets. Every bond approved IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE. Rejecting bonds is one of the few direct ways taxpayers can force those rates to drop when old debt finally matures.
What This Means for Your Wallet
If these bond measures pass, expect the impact to show up in higher property taxes (which have been skyrocketing in recent years),5 even if the rate doesn’t change. And when local debt races ahead of the private economy, it crowds out jobs, business expansion, and family savings.
Passing bond after bond also erodes public trust, and the burden falls heaviest on younger families and future generations who had no say in the decisions.
Teachers in Texas also face a particularly sharp hit from the state’s surging school bond debt. As homeowners, they pay rising I&S property taxes, adding hundreds if not thousands of dollars to their property tax bills over time. It makes housing less affordable and the cost of living higher in the very districts where they work, contributes to higher turnover, and pushes educators, families, and businesses to leave for lower-tax areas. And this is all despite the bonds being sold as investments “for the kids and their teachers.”6
Smarter Choices
Voters and local leaders don’t necessarily have to choose between infrastructure improvements and endless debt. There are proven alternatives that actually control costs, and help to protect taxpayers:
- Pay-as-you-go funding: Set aside money each year in a capital reserve fund instead of borrowing. A local government that saves $2 million annually can build a $20 million facility in a decade, debt-free and with tens of millions in interest avoided.
- Lease-purchase agreements: For equipment like buses, fire trucks, or technology that doesn’t last 30 years, these shorter-term deals (typically five to seven years) keep obligations manageable and flexible.
- Simple prioritization: Local governments should focus on core services and cut the rest, and stop indebting citizens just for the shiny new thing.
What Needs to Change
This Saturday’s elections are a perfect moment for Texans to make their voices heard either way. But real, lasting change requires state-level action too:
- Enact common-sense spending limits that cap total budget increases to the lesser of population growth plus inflation, or 3.5%,
- Require two-thirds voter approval for any increase in property-tax collections,
- Require two-thirds voter approval for bonds; and,
- Mandate full transparency on every bond ballot: total cost including interest, projected tax impact on the average home, and clear language.
Texas Taxpayers First
Texas built its reputation as an economic powerhouse on low taxes, limited government, and personal responsibility. That edge is slipping as local debt continues to climb well past half a trillion dollars. Taxpayers must start demanding that their elected officials, at every level, start to put their families and their children first.
The status quo could very well bankrupt us.
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- https://thecannononline.com/texas-local-government-debt-soars-to-552-billion/ ↩︎
- https://www.texaspolicy.com/hijacked-how-the-bond-process-is-being-used-against-taxpayers/ ↩︎
- https://texastaxpayers.com/texas-property-taxes-increased-2-7-billion-in-2025-whats-broken-and-how-do-we-actually-fix-it/ ↩︎
- https://texastaxpayers.com/texas-broken-bond-election-system/ ↩︎
- https://texastaxpayers.com/a-decade-of-government-growth-property-taxes/ ↩︎
- https://texastaxpayers.com/fredericksburg-isds-339-million-tax-bill-in-disguise/ ↩︎
