In the months ahead, AISD trustees will decide whether to send a bond package to voters in November. One effort the bond could help fund is creating affordable housing on district-owned property to try to retain teachers getting priced out of the city.
The Austin ISD board of trustees will decide later this summer whether to include a bond package on the ballot in November. A bond allows the school district to borrow money to cover the cost of capital expenditures, such as updating facilities, improving technology and buying new buses. The 2022 bond program may also address a growing crisis in Austin: the lack of affordable housing.
“We moved away from a bandaid approach, which is what the district had been using for so many years," Segura said."What happens over time is those deficiencies begin to stack up and our annual operating budget can't address all of them in the right way at that time." According to the presentation, a person would need to make $171,794 a year to buy an"average" home in Austin now. To afford rent on a one-bedroom apartment, a person would need to make nearly $59,000 a year. Many Austin ISD teachers make less than that.The presentation also points out that competition for teachers is increasing as other Central Texas school districts offer more robust benefit packages.