Cooke County Democrats urge every voter of conscience to cast a YES ballot for the Gainesville ISD bond and for Callisburg ISD’s Proposition A, while giving thoughtful support to Callisburg Propositions B and C.
Public education is the cornerstone of freedom and prosperity. When children learn in safe, well‑equipped schools they grow into informed citizens, wages climb, and crime drops. Economists have documented that a single extra year of schooling slashes violent‑crime arrest rates by up to 30 percent. Pull that ladder of opportunity away and the costs show up in prison budgets and shattered neighborhoods.
Yet Austin has left our classrooms stranded. The Legislature has not raised the basic allotment ($6,160 per pupil) since 2019, even though the Consumer Price Index has jumped from 251.7 to roughly 319.8 during the same period, a 27 percent spike. A bill filed this spring would add only $220, nowhere near what inflation has already stolen from district budgets. In Gainesville that token bump equals about $680,000 a year; at that pace it would take nearly four decades to fund the renovations our kids need today.
Because the state won’t act, local voters must. Borrowing for capital improvements is standard practice across Texas: Abilene ISD carries $191 million in voter‑approved debt and Allen ISD nearly $590 million, while Gainesville’s current obligation is a very modest $19 million. The proposed Gainesville bond (roughly $55 million) will modernize every campus with secure entrances, upgraded alarms and HVAC, larger cafeterias and libraries, and a career‑and‑technical‑education wing that prepares students for real jobs, not just test scores. For the average homeowner the tax impact is about the price of one latte a month.
Callisburg ISD faces similar choices. “Proposition A” funds academic essentials: classroom additions, HVAC and ADA upgrades, security cameras, new buses, an ag barn, and CTE conversions, all for about 7.6 cents on the tax rate. That is an easy “yes.” Propositions B and C focus on athletic facilities (field house, stadium work, baseball‑softball turf) adding roughly 2½ cents combined. Sports build discipline and community spirit, and these upgrades are sensible, but academics come first; we therefore endorse B and C, though less emphatically than A.
Some opponents see any tax increase as waste. But taxes are not money burned in a barrel; they are the membership dues of a civilized society. From 1951 through the early 1960s the top federal income‑tax bracket stood at 91 percent, and those dollars built the Interstate Highway System, funded the GI Bill, and put a generation into the middle class. Cutting taxes for the ultra‑rich has not revived that golden age; it has hollowed it out. Bonds, by contrast, are the most transparent tax you can pay: Texas Education Code Chapter 45 locks every dime into the projects voters approve, and annual audits track the spending. Even critics who applaud tariffs (an import tax paid by Americans) should appreciate a levy whose benefits land squarely on Cooke County’s children.
If we fail to act, construction costs will only rise, classrooms will become more crowded, and security shortfalls will not fix themselves. A “no” vote does not save money; it merely punts the bill to the next generation with interest attached.
Early voting is underway, and Election Day is May 3. Bring your photo ID, bring a neighbor, and bring the conviction that public schools are worth every penny. As Democrats, we know these bonds raise taxes. This is money that will come out of our pockets just like yours. We’re willing to make that sacrifice for the future of Gainesville’s children. Are you? Vote YES for Gainesville ISD, YES for Callisburg ISD Proposition A, and (if you can) YES for Propositions B and C. An investment in our children is the smartest, most patriotic investment any community can make.
