Bonds and borrowing

About bonds and borrowing ballot measures

Measures carrying this tag ask voters for permission to borrow. A bond measure authorizes a state or local government to sell bonds up to a stated ceiling, spend the proceeds on named purposes — school buildings, water systems, transit, housing, land conservation — and repay bondholders with interest over a term that commonly runs twenty to thirty years. Many state constitutions require voter approval before general-obligation debt above a threshold can be issued, which is why these questions appear on a ballot at all rather than being settled by the legislature.

The two numbers that matter are rarely the same. The authorization is the principal a government may borrow; the repayment total is principal plus interest across the life of the issue, and it is usually much larger. A fiscal note may also state the revenue source pledged to repayment — an existing tax, a new one, or the general fund — and whether a rate increase is part of the question or is left for later. The fiscal impact summary on each measure page reproduces the state's own analysis where one was issued.

Points to check in the text: whether the debt is general obligation, backed by the government's full taxing power, or revenue debt repaid only from the project's own receipts; how tightly the permitted uses are drawn, since a broad purpose clause leaves later spending choices to an agency; whether authorization expires if unissued; and whether any oversight, audit, or reporting requirement is written into the measure itself rather than promised alongside it.

Wording, numbering, and certification status are set by each state and can change up to the printing of the ballot. Every summary above links to the records it was built from; where those records disagree with this page, the records govern. Confirm the final ballot text with your state or county election authority before you rely on it.