Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 28
CISD Moms Form Political Action Committee • Coppell Council Approves Lower Tax Rate • Drinks Will Flow During St. Ann Carnival • H-E-B Announces First Dallas County Store
CISD Moms Form Political Action Committee
One week after Coppell ISD trustees placed a tax proposition on the ballot, a group of moms formalized an effort to support its passage.
The paperwork for the “Yes! Committed to Our Schools” political action committee was filed with the school district on Monday. It says treasurer Trudy Baade was appointed by Rebecca Bailey.
Bailey informed me that she and Baade are two of the committee’s four co-chairs; the others are Jill Hill and Amanda Nevels. Each of these women has at least two children enrolled in Coppell ISD schools. Baade is the only one of the four women who is not a former Coppell ISD student.
The quartet will be encouraging Coppell ISD voters to support the voter-approval tax-ratification election (VATRE) that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot. If a majority of voters do so, the district will add 3.17 pennies to its maintenance-and-operations (M&O) tax rate, resulting in $2.4 million worth of extra funds that can be used to pay teachers, school resource officers, and other employees.
If the VATRE is successful, the average Coppell ISD homeowner would pay an additional $163 per year, according to the webpage linked in the previous paragraph. Homeowners who are at least 65 years old would see no increase, because their school taxes are frozen.
Baade, Bailey, Nevels, and your correspondent were among about a dozen people who showed up at Coppell Middle School East last Tuesday for a VATRE information session hosted by Superintendent Brad Hunt, Chief Financial Officer Diana Sircar, and Chief Communications Officer Angela Brown. Similar sessions are scheduled for 6 p.m. on Tuesday at Coppell Middle School North, and 6 p.m. on Sept. 11 at Coppell Middle School West.
When I arrived at last Tuesday’s session, I did not know the political action committee had been formed, nor did I know three of its co-chairs were seated at the cafeteria tables nearby. But I do recall that Baade and Gaby Anene co-chaired a political action committee with the same name last year that encouraged voters to support the school district’s bond election.
An anti-bond political action committee did not file its paperwork until the day before the May 5 election. By that point, more than 4,100 early voters had already cast their ballots. I wonder if any anti-VATRE committees will get an earlier start before the November election. Early voting will begin on Oct. 21.
Coppell Council Approves Lower Tax Rate
Approving municipal budgets can be almost as difficult as creating them.
Tuesday’s Coppell City Council meeting began with a closed-door consultation with City Attorney Bob Hager “regarding Chapter 102 of the Texas Local Government Code and Chapter 26 of the Texas Tax Code,” per the agenda. Those chapters are titled “Municipal Budget” and “Assessment,” respectively.
I can’t tell you exactly what was said during that executive session, but I’ve got a good guess based on something Director of Strategic Financial Engagement Kim Tiehen said during Tuesday’s public hearing on the proposed budget: “Council has been provided the language that must be used if council decides to amend the proposed budget and then the tax rate with the changes shown on this slide.”