On the ballot May 6 for those voters living in the Patton Springs Independent School District is the district’s plan to raise more than $9 million in bonds for safety, security, and expansion of classrooms, teacher housing, and land acquisition.
The arrival of cryptocurrency mining and solar energy development in the district poses an opportunity for the district with $17 million in taxable value recently certified from Argo Blockchain’s Helios crypto mining plant. (Argo sold the Helios assets to financial backer Galaxy Digital on Dec. 28.)
However, due to state “Robin Hood” laws, none of the cryptocurrency and solar tax revenue would go to Patton Springs. Under the current arrangement, the state of Texas recaptures excess local property tax from wealthier school districts that are able to pay their entitlement funding and distributes it to school districts that cannot.
With a bond election, the cryptocurrency mining and solar energy development companies would be required to support the bond initiative with their industrial taxable values and initial projections from PSISD consultants for the bond election, Live Oak Public, LLC, estimates that 84% of the bond costs would be paid by industrial taxes.
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