The headline caught my eye, “Early voting begins in NISD rollback election“. I thought, cool, another group of taxpayers has decided to scale back the growth of government, similar to the Texas City attempt earlier this year. Ha. Fooled again.

This is no attempt by taxpayers to slow the growth in government. This is actually an attempt by the Nacogdoches school board to increase the revenue stream for their school district. How can that be, you ask? Simple.

You ask voters to raise the tax rate above the state mandated reduction and call it a rollback election because the proposed rate is below the previous year’s rate even though total revenues are higher than the state mandated rollback. Whew. Confused? Lucy, ’splain please.

If a person wishes to support the board and the district recommendation of $1.37 tax rate, they will vote “for” on the election ballot. If a person does not wish to support the board and district recommendation, instead opting for the $1.24 rollback rate, they will vote “against” on the election ballot, Linda Engle, NISD chief financial officer, said previously in a Daily Sentinel article.

Although the $1.37 tax rate is a 22-cent reduction from last year’s $1.59 rate, it is still higher than the state rollback rate of $1.24 per $100 valuation, which was set as a result of action taken by the Texas Legislature during its last session.

There, see how easy that is? But, you say, it’s still a revenue reduction. No, it isn’t. When the state mandated the lower rates, the lower property tax revenue was replaced by other funding mechanisms. Ever heard of the business tax? It’s actually more complicated than that but you get the point.

You have to love how politicians and bureaucrats explain the facts of life to voters.

If the rollback election passes, NISD will receive an additional $3 million, which is a combination of $1.8 million from local taxes and $1.2 million from state funds, according to Dr. Rodney Hutto, NISD superintendent.

“Part of the reason for calling a rollback election is to access $1.2 million in new revenue from the state that we will not have access to if we do not take advantage of the timing issue,” Hutto said. “The rollback election will result in a reduction in taxes for all property owners, which will result in $1.8 million in taxes from the community while accessing $1.2 million in new revenues from the state.”

If the rollback election fails, the district will not receive the additional $1.2 million from the state, he said.

Back to Lucy for an explanation. What Dr. Hutto is saying to the voters of the N.I.S.D. is this: if you don’t pony up an additional $1.8 million from your pocketbook, the state will not give me another $1.2 million from someone else’s pocketbook. Got it now?

And Dr. Hutto brings out the classic propaganda to sway voters his way.

First, the teachers:

“If the rollback election is successful, employees will see the increase reflected in their first paycheck after the election,” Hutto said. “Nacogdoches lags behind most comparison districts in their pay for teachers.

Next, fuel costs, those dastardly Arabs.

“When you look at the fuel market, we are paying more for fuel today than we did last year due to the instability of the energy market and the season,” Hutto said. “For the last few weeks, there has been a reduction in cost of fuel. When you prepare a budget for fuel consumption, you make sure that your estimates of cost are enough to cover fluctuations in pricing during the fiscal year.”

We will have to overlook the contradiction in that statement.

Finally, he tells the voters that the buildings will fall down without the increase, er, rollback.

If the rollback election is not successful, general maintenance issues will not be addressed, he said.

At least he admits that life will go on.

“We will have school,” Hutto said. “We will not have access to the $1.2 million in new revenues from the state as well as the $1.8 local revenue which will be used to offset price increases. We will not address facility issues that were not intended to be addressed with the bond election as quickly as we could otherwise.”

How about we take a look at Dr. Hutto’s budget for this school year and see if there has been a cutback.

Hmm. Looks like a 10% increase to me. Well, perhaps the per pupil costs have been slashed.

Sorry. Still a 10% increase. No matter how you slice it or dice it, the voters of the Nacogdoches Independent School District are being asked to raise their tax revenue. Even if you call it a rollback.