GISD adopts 1.54% decrease in combined rate following increase in property value

There was a $38 million difference (for the better) between April’s Preliminary Tax Values for Gladewater ISD and the eventual $757.9 million in Certified Values in July.
In the interim, the budget adopted by trustees in June was based on $753 million – the change led to a 1.54 percent decrease between last year’s tax rate and the new number. It also means, there’s no need for adjustment to the current financial plan for Fiscal Year 2026-2027 – GISD’s numbers are on-target.
“We’re really slightly under, so I feel good about the numbers that we used to budget revenue,” GISD Chief Financial Officer Candy Keller reported to trustees last week.
July’s Certified Tax Values totaled $757,904,754 between the three counties – approximately $371 million in Gregg, $245.1 million in Upshur and $141.8 million for Smith.
School districts’ tax rate calculations for Maintenance & Operations include the Maximum Compression Rate (set by Texas Education Agency statewide) in addition to the local Voter Approved Enrichment Rate.
TEA lowered the MCR the past two years, Keller noted. Using the state’s latest rate of $0.6112 plus the local rate of $0.1383, the new combined M&O decreases slightly to $0.7495 per $100 valuation for FY2027. Likewise, the Interest & Sinking rate (based on debt) decreased from a preliminary figure of $0.25336 to the final $0.243523.
Adding them together reaches a total tax rate of $0.993023 per $100 valuation, declining from $1.008536 per $100 of taxable value in FY2026. The district still nets a bit more in revenue from the tax base.
“When you factor in the difference in the certified values and the fact that we used a little bit lower and that our MCR’s dropping, we’re within about $12,000 of what I anticipate we would have collected,” Keller concluded. “I feel good about those numbers to be within $12,000.”