In an effort to save money, which is in short supply for Texas school districts, Stafford Municipal School District officials placed their election notice in an east Fort Bend County newspaper that recently began publishing.

The problem with that is state law says the public notice of an election must be in a newspaper that has “been published regularly and continuously for at least 12 months before the governmental entity or representative publishes notice” and the publication may not have omitted more than two issues in the 12-month period.

State law also says a newspaper in which a legal notice is published by an entity must also devote no less than 25 percent of its total column lineage to general interest items, be published at least once weekly and be entered as second-class (periodicals) postal matter in the county where published.

The newspaper SMSD paid to have its notice of election published in is not widely distributed in Stafford but is on a few countertops in the city and it does not have a second class periodical permit because an owner cannot even apply for such until he/she has published for a year.

After these discrepencies were called to the district’s attention, Stafford\ MSD Superintendent H. D. Chambers said he called the Texas secretary of state’s office to get an opinion on whether this would affect the trustee election being held on May 10 and by late afternoon Monday, he had his answer. No, it will not change anything.

Chambers said an attorney in the secretary of state’s elective division office said that “as long as it’s advertised publicly and public notices are provided in the languages required by your county, it meets their expectations in terms of what the election code requires.”

Earlier Monday and prior to speaking to the state attorney, the superintendent said, “Because of all the efforts we made and documentation we have, I don’t think it will effect the election. We did everything we should have and are also running the election notice in the “Fort Bend Star,” which has printed continuously every week for 30 years.

“Are we moving forward with the election? Absolutely,” Chambers said. He also said the state attorney told the district, “You did what you thought was right and are advertising elsewhere also. You met it (state law), go for the election.”

The state election code Sec. 4.003 says notice of an election must be given by any one or more of the following methods: publishing the notice at least once no earlier than the 30th day or later than the 10th day before election day, in a newspaper published in the territory that is covered by the election, in a newspaper of general circulation in the territory.