In addition to bond propositions, voters within San Marcos CISD will decide whether to voluntarily send property tax revenue collected in excess of the district’s funding needs to the Texas Education Agency to allocate it to property-poor districts in need.
Why and how SMCISD became required to ask voters for an attendance credit election—otherwise known as recapture—to sell attendance credit funding in excess of its needs to the TEA aligns with the experience of other districts in Texas that have median family incomes on the lower end of the statewide average.
“One of the ways that I often speak about this topic is that there is a difference in property wealth and personal wealth. The example that I often give to people is South Padre Island [Port Isabel ISD],” said Christy Rome, executive director of the Texas School Coalition. “Eight-five percent of their students are economically disadvantaged because the parents who are sending their children to school there are not the people who own the resort hotels. They’re the people who clean the resort hotels.”