Debt

Key facts

• Future loan payments owed (mid-2025): about $3 billion¹
• Interest still to come: about $1.4 billion²
• Due on loans in 2025-26 (audit schedule): about $153 million¹
• Debt tax on an average home, 2026-27: about $1,519³

In short

The district has borrowed a lot to build schools. It still owes about 3 billion dollars in future payments. About half of that is interest.¹ In 2025-26 it was due to pay about 153 million dollars on these loans, per the audit’s payment schedule.¹ That money comes from a separate debt tax on your home.

Why it matters to your tax bill: the debt tax is 33 cents of every 100 dollars of your home’s taxable value. On an average home that is about 1,519 dollars this year.³

Related: all school loans · interest · refinancing · early payoffs · growing loans · bond cash waiting · debt vs peers

The school district borrows money to build schools. It pays the money back over many years, plus interest.

In mid-2025, the district still owed about $3 billion in future loan payments.¹ About $1.5 billion of that was interest. After this past year’s payments, about $1.4 billion of interest is still to come.²

How big is the debt?

• Per student: about $49,330 of debt for each of the 42,608 students counted in 2024-25, the same year as the debt figure. That is up about 24% since 2020-21.⁴

• Next to similar districts: counting principal plus interest, Leander owes about $69,795 per student. That is 6th of 11 similar districts, near the middle.⁵

• Debt vs. buildings: from 2017 to 2025, the value of the district’s buildings, land and equipment (after wear) rose about $450 million. Its debt rose about $503 million. By June 2025, the district owed more on its bonds than its buildings, land and equipment were worth on its books. It owed $1.54 billion, plus $198 million of extra money buyers paid up front for the bonds (called premium). Those assets were valued at $1.53 billion.⁶ Book value is not what the buildings would sell for or cost to replace.

• Debt vs. property value: we could not match the audit’s own figure. Add the district’s debt to the debt of cities and counties that tax the same homes. By our math, that total was about 7.5% of taxable value, not the 6.26% printed.⁷

• State’s count: the Texas Bond Review Board lists about $1.52 billion of voter-approved principal (the amount borrowed) at 2025. With interest, it is about $2.97 billion. The growing-loan part (CABs, short for capital appreciation bonds) is small: $26.7 million borrowed. But it carries $536 million of payments, about $20 owed for each $1 still borrowed.⁸

How you pay for it

Your school tax bill has two parts. One part runs the schools. The other part pays the loans. We call that part the “debt tax.” Its official name is the “I&S tax.”

This year, the debt tax on an average home is about $1,519.³ Last year it was about $1,553.⁹ Over the past ten school years, an average home paid about $15,000 in debt tax.⁹

So what: the debt tax is a steady part of your bill. It does not go away until the loans are paid.

Most of the payment is interest

Last school year, the district was due to pay about $153 million on its loans, per the audit’s schedule.¹ About $2 of every $3 was interest. Only about $1 of every $3 paid back what was borrowed.

Think of the early years of a house loan. Most of each payment goes to the bank. Very little pays off the house.

Where the interest comes from

About two-thirds of last year’s interest is on refinanced loans that voters first approved in 2000–2007.¹⁰ Those loans were refinanced. But their cost did not go away. It moved into the newer loans. Many of the old loans were growing loans.

In 2014, Leander had more growing-loan debt than any other school district in Texas.¹¹

The other side

• Fast-growing districts borrow to build schools as students arrive. Texas school districts need a public vote to sell bonds paid from the debt tax (Education Code §45.003).
• Much of the interest comes from older loans. Newer loans cost less (see refinancing).

Questions to ask

• When will the district post its full borrowing model with the adviser’s slides?
• How can the public find the latest debt totals before the state posts them?

Changes to this page

• Nov. 2, 2026: We now say the asset value includes equipment, as the audit counts it, not just buildings and land.
• Nov. 2, 2026: Rewrote the questions to ask so each is open, neutral and addressed to the public body.
• Nov. 2, 2026: Added questions to ask.
• Nov. 2, 2026: We replaced an unsourced line about voter approval with the state law that requires it.

What you can do or watch next

• Watch the debt tax rate the board sets each summer.
• See all school loans for each loan and property tax bill for your share.
• Watch for new bond sales on board agendas.

What we still don’t know

• The state has not yet published debt totals for 2025-26, so the newest figures here are from 2025.
• We have not seen the full borrowing model behind the adviser’s slides.

Numbers marked “our math” are our estimates, not official figures. The notes show the inputs and the steps.

Footnotes

1. Leander ISD, Annual Comprehensive Financial Report 2025, debt schedule, page 46. Local copy of the page. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

2. Our math. The report lists about $1.48 billion of interest still owed as of June 30, 2025. About $101 million of that was paid in 2025-26. ↩ ↩²

3. Leander ISD board packet, Aug. 6, 2026, pages 234–235: debt tax rate of 33 cents per $100 of value, times an average taxable home value of $460,292. Board packet. ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. ACFR 2025, Table 12 (total debt, $2.102 billion) divided by Table 16 (average daily membership, 42,608), compared with 2020-21 ($1.608 billion ÷ 40,287 = $39,906). Our math. ↩

5. Texas Comptroller local debt data, data.texas.gov, fiscal 2025; our ranking among 11 similar districts. ↩

6. ACFR 2025, net capital assets and Table 12. ↩

7. ACFR 2025, Table 13: $3,466,703,022 ÷ $46,415,581,397 taxable value = 7.47%. Our math. ↩

8. Texas Bond Review Board, local government debt data (data.texas.gov 6d42-4z7a, updated Sept. 14, 2026), Leander ISD, fiscal 2025. ↩

9. Same source for 2025-26 (average taxable value $470,461). Earlier years come from district budget books. The ten-year total covers 2017-18 through 2026-27 and is our math. ↩ ↩²

10. Our math from each bond’s payment schedule. About $68 million of the $101 million in 2025-26 interest was on refinancing loans. They trace back to borrowing voters approved in 2000–2007, though much of it was first sold later, up to 2014. See Interest. ↩

11. Texas Bond Review Board, 2014 Local Government Annual Report, Table 3.6, page 38. ↩