Wylie ISD board trustees on Monday heard an update on the district’s Diversity and Inclusion program and also adopted the tax rate for the 2021-22 school year.

The board also approved raising adult lunch meal prices to $4.15 from $3.75 and approved extension of emergency paid sick leave for COVID-19.

Casey Whittle, assistant superintendent for human resources for the district, conducted a PowerPoint presentation on D&I, which is a non-curriculum program implemented last year. Whittle discussed the program’s goals and values, some lessons learned in its first year and what the program wants to do going forward. The program was placed under the HR department going into this school year.

On the tax rate, the board approved a rate of $1.4598 per $100 valuation, which is a 0.96 increase in the tax rate. The maintenance and operations rate is $0.9898 and the interest and sinking (debt service) rate is $0.4700. Last year’s rate was $1.5205.

The average taxable value of a home in the district is $293,297, up from $275,363 last year. Taxes dues on an average residence are $4,281.55, up $94.66 from $4,186.89 in 2020-21.

Also Monday, during open forum, a dozen people spoke, with D&I and face masks among the topics covered.

Read more about the meeting in the Aug. 25 edition of The Wylie News.

From Staff Reports [email protected]