Crosby ISD voters will decide on November 3 whether to authorize $208.28 million1 in new school bonds. The sample ballot lists the measures as Proposition A and Proposition B, and comes at a time when the district only has two cents of borrowing power left under the “fifty cent rule.”
Discrepancies
How much borrowing power two cents provides the district is up for debate, according to the district’s own documents. On December 10, 2025, a committee slide said the last two cents would generate $210.7 million in bond funds. Five days later, the recommendation to the board paired $157.4 million with that same two-cent increase, taking the interest-and-sinking rate from $0.48 to $0.50. A note said the lower figure reflected shorter financing for roofs, HVAC, and technology than for a new school. Package C on that deck also totals $157,449,819. The board called a $208.28 million election on August 17, 2026, and the district later told the Star-Courier that both propositions would raise the rate by about two cents, to $0.50.
Proposition A would authorize $98.28 million for a new elementary school and districtwide facility work, including HVAC, roofs, security, and technology. The ballot language also covers buying sites, school buses, and bus security devices. Proposition B would authorize $110 million for a new middle school to replace Crosby Middle School.
While they haven’t addressed this discrepancy publicly, they may be preparing to structure the bond sales in a way that allows their rate to stay maxed out, as older bond debt drops off, according to the district’s 2025 financial audit.2
Bonds are Property Tax Increases
State law requires each proposition to include the same warning: “THIS IS A PROPERTY TAX INCREASE.” The Legislature put that sentence on every school-bond ballot after years of districts telling voters the bonds would not raise taxes.3
But the fact of the matter is that bonds are property tax increases. Even if the Interest and Sinking (I&S) property tax rate stays the same, bonds are debt with interest, and debt must be repaid with more property taxes coming out of taxpayers’pockets over the course of years or decades.
The district’s own voter-information figures, attached to the election order, price the loans at a 5 percent interest rate over 30 years. Proposition A’s estimated interest is $95,833,145. Principal and interest together: $194,113,145. Proposition B’s estimated interest is $107,261,355. Principal and interest together: $217,261,355. Both propositions: $208.28 million in new principal and about $203.1 million in interest, or $411,374,500 over the life of the debt.
That is on top of debt the district already owes. As of the date the election was ordered, outstanding principal was $164,105,000 and remaining interest was $84,861,481, a combined $248,966,481. The interest-and-sinking rate that pays that debt is $0.4800 per $100 of taxable value. Texas law4 requires a district, before it issues new bonds, to show the attorney general a projected ability to pay the new bonds and the old ones from a tax not exceeding $0.50 per $100. Crosby is already using 96 percent of that capacity.
The voter-information document5 puts the maximum annual increase on a residence homestead appraised at $100,000 at $0. The document itself says that figure assumes a $140,000 homestead exemption, 30-year amortization, and $225 million of appraisal growth a year for three years, then no growth. A home appraised at $100,000 has no taxable value for an ISD under that exemption, so the required example cannot show an increase. Many homes in the district are worth more than $100,000.
Crosby ISD told the Star-Courier6 that if both propositions pass, the I&S rate would rise by about two cents, from $0.48 to $0.50 — about $0.009 for Proposition A and $0.011 for Proposition B. On an example homestead taxable value of $115,728, that is about $23.15 a year. At the same two cents, a $250,000 taxable value would pay about $50 a year tax increase.
The order7 allows the bonds to be sold “in one or more series.” It does not publish a year-by-year schedule showing how $208.28 million of new principal fits under a rate that is already at $0.48.
The School District Already Has a Disturbing Record on Bonds
Taxpayers have ample reason to be skeptical of the district, because in March 2022 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged8 Crosby ISD and its former chief financial officer with misleading investors in a $20 million bond sale. The January 18, 2018 offering documents used fiscal-year 2017 financials that failed to report $11.7 million in payroll and construction liabilities and reported $5.4 million in general-fund reserves the district did not have. Seven months after the sale, the district disclosed a negative general-fund balance and declared financial exigency. The SEC said the overruns traced to a 2013 bond program whose projects had outrun what voters were told.
The district settled without admitting or denying the findings and agreed to a cease-and-desist order. The former CFO paid a $30,000 penalty and was barred from future municipal offerings. No fine was levied on the district.
That is the record the district brings to a new $208.28 million ask.
Crosby ISD taxpayers will have the final say on whether or not they want to in-debt themselves and their children for decades to come, and authorize higher property taxes to pay for it, or demand fiscal discipline from the school district.
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- https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1790015262/crosbyisdorg/br1wan0esuvdlegmlqaq/CrosbyISD-order-English.pdf ↩︎
- https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1768429431/crosbyisdorg/nkrsnhya8saayexyexqa/CrosbyISDAFR06-30-25Final.pdf ↩︎
- https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ED/htm/ED.45.htm ↩︎
- https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/?tab=1&code=ED&chapter=ED.45&artSec= ↩︎
- https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1790015262/crosbyisdorg/br1wan0esuvdlegmlqaq/CrosbyISD-order-English.pdf ↩︎
- https://www.starcouriernews.com/2026/09/crosby-isd-board-seeks-approval-for-208m-bond/ ↩︎
- https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1790015262/crosbyisdorg/br1wan0esuvdlegmlqaq/CrosbyISD-order-English.pdf ↩︎
- https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022-43 ↩︎
