Source reporting: Texas Scorecard
Midlothian Independent School District trustees approved a property-tax rate of $1.0269 per $100 of taxable value for the 2026-27 fiscal year. Texas Scorecard reported that the board adopted the rate 6-1 during a September 1 special meeting, with Trustee Ed Harrison casting the only opposing vote.
The approved rate includes 61.69 cents for maintenance and operations and 41 cents for debt service. The debt portion supports principal and interest obligations, including debt associated with a $389 million bond package voters approved in November 2025.
The district’s no-new-revenue rate was approximately 96 cents per $100, making the adopted rate a tax increase under the state’s revenue-based comparison. At the same time, the district’s taxpayer impact statement projected that the owner of a median-valued homestead would owe about $2,603, down from $2,710 the previous year. The two findings are not contradictory: the no-new-revenue calculation measures whether the taxing unit will collect more from properties already on its roll, while an individual bill also reflects exemptions and changes in taxable value.
According to the report, the district’s median taxable homestead value rose only slightly to $253,511, partly because Texas voters increased the school-district homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000 in November 2025. The total certified tax roll, however, grew by nearly 11 percent and included more than $900 million in new value.
District administrators said the state’s school-finance system requires the district to tax at its maximum maintenance-and-operations capacity to receive all available state funding. They identified enrollment growth, changes in special-allotment demographics, legislative increases to the basic allotment and a voter-approval tax-rate election as the district’s principal avenues for raising operating revenue.
Harrison argued that the rate would increase taxes for many property owners and nearly reaches the voter-approval threshold of $1.042. Other trustees defended the decision as necessary to fund the district’s obligation to educate students.
The vote matters to taxpayers because the adopted rate combines local operating revenue, state funding incentives and repayment of voter-approved debt. Comparing final bills across property types, rather than relying only on the median-homestead estimate, will show how the decision affects homeowners, businesses and owners of property that does not receive a homestead exemption.