It was less than one year ago that voters rejected Prop A, the largest bond in Amarillo ISD history. It was the first time in history any Amarillo ISD bond had ever been defeated. The cherry on top: voters didn’t just defeat the Prop A bond. They also defeated Props B, C, and D. Despite the election taking place between hotly contested statewide primary and runoff elections, despite the fact that the four propositions were stuffed onto the ballot at the last possible minute, voters turned out to reject the tax hike.
Now, voters have a chance to elect three new faces to the Amarillo ISD Board of Trustees. Instead, all over town, I see support for the two incumbents who pushed to raise taxes. On top of that, I’m also seeing plenty of support for Steve Trafton, a man who sits on the board of the group responsible for skyrocketing city taxes, Amarillo Matters PAC. Something tells me he won’t be any better at fighting for low taxes on the school board than he was pushing for higher city taxes.
But, as we all know, yard signs don’t mean that much when it comes to actual results. And, with only two incumbents running for the three open seats, there will be at least one new face.
Unfortunately, for the most part, the primary focus of many of the other candidates isn’t low taxes. After all, who cares that Amarillo ISD tried to raise your taxes dramatically? There are fun culture war moral panic of the week issues to talk about!
Back in reality, the hard truth is that, even if somehow three new low-tax faces are elected to the board, they still won’t have a majority, as there are four incumbents who aren’t even up for reelection this year. For a real change, voters would have to, at the very least, vote in low-tax candidates this year and then show up to do the same in 2025. The time to reverse course isn’t later, it’s now. We literally cannot afford to wait.
