A Texas lawmaker wants to make it significantly harder for school districts to pile up bond debt, filing a measure that would require a 60% supermajority of voters to approve bond elections instead of today's simple majority. State Rep. Mike Olcott, who represents Aledo, filed House Joint Resolution 30 to propose the change as a constitutional amendment.
HJR 30 would require approval from at least three-fifths of qualified voters in a school district bond election before property taxes could be levied to repay the debt, according to Texas Scorecard. Under current law, school district bond elections require only approval by a simple majority of qualified voters participating in the election, per the same report. If lawmakers approve the resolution, the constitutional amendment would go before voters on the November 2, 2027 ballot.
This isn't Olcott's first attempt at the idea. He filed similar legislation during the previous legislative session, but that measure never received a committee hearing, the outlet reports. HJR 30 will need approval from both chambers of the legislature before it can be submitted to voters as a constitutional amendment.
A November Election Full of Rejected Bond Measures
The timing lines up with a rough November for school bond proposals across the state. Texas voters rejected approximately 75 percent of local bond propositions and voter-approval tax rate elections that went before them on the November 3 election, per the Texas Scorecard report. Several of the ballots that went down were enormous by local standards, including Cypress-Fairbanks ISD's proposed $1.6 billion bond package and Irving ISD's proposed $952 million package.
Cypress-Fairbanks ISD's outcome was especially lopsided. Voters there rejected all five propositions on the ballot, including the $1.6 billion bond package and a separate property tax increase, according to Click2Houston. None of the propositions received more than 37% support, according to unofficial results the district released. Propositions B through E alone made up the $1.636 billion bond package, and together the five measures would have produced a cumulative 9-cent tax rate increase supporting operations funding, infrastructure and classroom technology, according to Cypress-Fairbanks ISD. Nearly 198,000 ballots were cast in the district's election, with about 76% of those cast during early voting, Click2Houston reported.
Northside ISD had its own bond ask on the same ballot. The district's three bond packages, Propositions B, C, and D, total just over $886 million, according to Northside Independent School District. The district's board voted on August 11 to place a Voter-Approval Tax Rate Election, known as a VATRE, along with the bond packages, on the November 3 ballot. Northside ISD describes the VATRE as funding daily operations like salaries and utilities, while the bonds would finance capital expenses such as construction and renovations; the VATRE asked voters to consider a three-cent increase in the maintenance and operations tax rate, estimated at roughly $30 more per year for every $100,000 in home value. Bond Buyer separately noted a three-part $886.2 million bond package on the ballot in the San Antonio area.
Statewide Debt Has Topped $236 Billion
Olcott's push arrives against a backdrop of ballooning school debt statewide. The Texas Public Policy Foundation says school bond-related debt in Texas had surpassed $236 billion as of 2026, according to a Texas Public Policy Foundation release. The group's May 2026 Bond Election Report found that Texas voters approved 63 percent of proposed bonds that election cycle — 276 of 439 measures worth nearly $133 billion in total repayment, with the approved bonds carrying total repayment of $96.7 billion.
Researchers at the foundation modeled what would happen under a higher approval bar. They estimated that a 60 percent approval threshold could have eliminated approximately $5 billion in school district debt repayment during the May cycle, with 63 of 122 analyzed propositions still passing under the higher threshold.
The foundation's report did not stop at recommending a higher vote threshold. It also recommended minimum voter turnout requirements, moving bond elections to November, and requiring ballots to disclose estimated repayment costs including interest, according to the same report. Bond issuance has already been easing statewide: Texas school districts put $7.357 billion of bonds on ballots in November, down from $12.4 billion in May, and Texas voters overall were set to weigh about $65.8 billion in general-obligation bonds on November 3, down from a record nearly $98 billion in May and $93 billion in November 2025, per Bond Buyer.
Texas Scorecard's report on HJR 30 was authored by Riley Wanasek and published in the outlet's state section. Whether Olcott's renewed push fares differently than his prior attempt, which never got a committee hearing, remains to be seen as the legislature takes up the proposal.
