Midlothian ISD voters sent a message on Tuesday that their school district’s proposal to cover a budget shortfall didn’t appear to be “golden” enough.
In an environment where voters’ senses were hyper-tuned to spending, MISD patrons flocked to the polls to reject the only significant local measure on the ballot — a voter-approved tax rate election, or VATRE, that would have moved three cents from the “interest and sinking” portion of the school’s property tax rate per $100 taxable valuation to the “maintenance and operations” part.
The final vote was 16,530 in favor of the measure, and 12,298 against it. The referendum failed in all three modes of voting — absentee, early voting and Election Day.
Even if approved, the MISD portion of residents’ property tax bills would have stayed unchanged at $1.1069 per $100 taxable valuation.
This shift in funding would have allowed the district to access so-called “golden pennies” that will result in an additional estimated $4.7 million in funding.
District funding priorities in the lead-up to the election, according to MISD, were teacher and staff compensation, lower class sizes, student programming and experiences, and safety and security enhancements.
No county offices were contested in Tuesday’s election, but two prominent Republican locals will continue to represent the Cement City in Austin and Washington. Incumbent GOP Rep. Jake Ellzey, whose residence is near Midlothian, was re-elected to a second full term easily, defeating Democrat John Love III. Texas House Rep. Brian Harrison, who lives in Midlothian, was unopposed on the ballot with only a smattering of write-in votes.
“I’ve been honored to fight for the freedom and liberty of all Texans since getting elected in 2021 and am proud to be one of the most effective conservatives in the Texas Legislature,” Harrison said in a statement Tuesday night. “I want government to be as irrelevant to our lives as possible, so we can be as free as God intended us to be.”
Incumbent U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz carried Ellis County easily en route to a statewide win over Democratic challenger Colin Allred, as did GOP candidate and former president Donald Trump, who will be only the second executive in history to serve two separate terms after winning Tuesday’s election.
Trump’s statewide margin over Democrat Kamala Harris of 14 percent reversed a trend of growing blue strength in the Lone Star State over recent previous presidential elections.
Ellis County remained reliably red, with most Republicans receiving two-thirds of the vote across the board.
In other election news, a series of propositions establishing and controlling the Lakesong Municipal Management District No. 1 was approved. Five members of the Board of Directors were elected: Dylan Klein, Maxwell Miller, Christopher Young, Fernando Bocanegra and Samuel Mota.
A majority of voters had already cast their ballots prior to Election Day. The Ellis County Elections Office announced on Friday that a whopping total of 81,099 voters, or 54.94 percent of all registered voters in the county, had cast their votes early, either in person or by mail.
The in-person early voting number was boosted massively by the Midlothian Conference Center, where 26,324 voters showed up, the most in the county. In comparison, county seat Waxahachie had a little more than 22,300 early voters between the Ellis County Woman’s Building and the Knights of Columbus Hall.
