Howard County election administrator Saundra Bloom said only 2.9 percent of the school district’s voters cast ballots Saturday.

“It was a disappointing turnout,” she said. “But this was a special, single-issue election, so that may have had something to do with it.”

Although the election will result in BSISD technically raising its tax rate (for maintenance and operation purposes), in reality, the district’s overall tax rate will remain unchanged — trustees are simply shifting debt service payments over to the maintenance and operation side of the budget in order to take advantage of an opportunity to significantly increase state aid to BSISD.

By artificially zeroing out the district’s debt service tax rate and raising the maintenance and operation tax rate at the same time, trustees will realize a net increase in revenue of close to $1 million this school year, said Dr. Michael Stevens, special advisor to BSISD Superintendent Steven Saldivar.

“We can’t help but be pleased with the election results,” Stevens said. “I think it shows we did our homework and did what we thought was right for the school district and the voters approved.”

Stevens estimated that the district will receive an extra $1.75 million from the state this year as a result of reworking the tax rate. After making debt service payments for the current fiscal year, BSISD should realize a net revenue increase of between $800,000 and $900,000.

Next for school officials is canvassing of the election results within the next week or so, then officially adopting the new rate. “We’ll send it off to the state, then they’ll reassess our values and determine the amount of revenue we’ll receive,” Stevens said.

The district should start realizing the extra revenue beginning in December or January Stevens said, adding that the extra money will be targeted at “instruction-related” areas.

Contact Staff Writer Steve Reagan at 263-7331 ext. 234 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it