Questions and answers

Four separate questions: Propositions A, B and C — that is the bond — and Proposition D, the VATRE. Each one passes or fails on its own, so you can vote for one and against another. Leon Strong asks you to vote FOR all four.

Permission to borrow. A Texas district cannot take on debt for buildings, buses and facilities without asking voters first, and it pays that debt back over time out of the Interest & Sinking side of the school tax rate.

No — and it is not that the district chose not to. Bond money legally cannot pay a salary. That is exactly why the VATRE is the second thing on your ballot.

Teachers are underpaid, and the VATRE is the only thing on this ballot that can do anything about it. It is three golden pennies, which is the part of our school taxes Texas lets us keep instead of sending back to the state.

More: the VATRE, explained in full

Not this money. Texas gives every district eight golden pennies and exempts them from recapture on purpose — it is the pennies above those, the copper ones, that go back to Austin. Leon ISD levies five of its eight today. The VATRE asks for the three the state cannot touch.

More: what golden pennies are, with worked examples

Because it is too hot to practice outside. Football is starting at 7 in the morning or waiting until almost 7 at night, and the band cannot get out there at all. By the time it cools off it is baseball season, and then it is lightning taking the field.

That is Proposition C — one project.

It is the heat reading Texas schools now have to take out on the field before practice. It counts humidity and direct sun, not just the temperature, which is why a still, sunny 95° shuts practice down when the thermometer looks fine. Put a roof over it and the sun stops counting.

No. Band, baseball, softball, track and golf all lose practice to the same weather that pushes football to 7 in the morning, and a covered field gives those days back to every one of them.

If you have the age 65 or older or disabled homestead exemption, your school taxes are capped at what you paid the year you qualified. Neither the bond nor the VATRE can push them above that ceiling. You do have to have applied for the exemption — the forms are at the Leon Central Appraisal District.

Because state law puts it there. A 2019 law requires that sentence on every school bond ballot in Texas, whether or not the bond actually raises anyone’s rate. Every district’s ballot reads that way. It is not something Leon ISD wrote.

Yes. Texas generally bars corporations from making political contributions, but state law makes an exception for committees that support ballot measures only and never candidates. Leon Strong is one of those, so a business can give here even though it could not give to a candidate.

More: ways to help