STAAR Report Card

May 2026’s Top 10 Most Expensive School Bonds

Next month, independent school districts (ISDs) will, again, ask voters to approve massive new borrowing schemes that threaten to unleash a wave of tax hikes and bigger bureaucracies.   These fiscal excesses appear widespread too.   Taxpayers in nearly 60 different counties will decide on one or more of the 109 individual propositions up for a vote this election cycle, according to the Texas Bond Review Board’s (BRB’s) bond election database. If these measures are entirely successful,...

Hijacked: How the Bond Process is Being Used Against Taxpayers

School bonds are one of the main instruments contributing to Texas’s local government debt, which is currently over half a trillion dollars. Key points: As of 2026, school bond debt in Texas is over $236 billion. In May of 2023, Texas passed 79% of the 245 bond proposals put on the ballot, costing taxpayers $22.9...

It’s 2023, and Labor Unions are So Cringe

Thanks—but no thanks. Texas is doing very well without politically connected labor unions driving public policy. This weekend, we are likely to scroll past social media posts that claim, “if you like your weekends and 40-hour workweeks, thank a union.” Propaganda like this appears to be having some success, as recent polling by Gallup indicates...