The budget was adopted June 26 in a 4-2 vote with trustees John Troy and Catherine Walker dissenting. Trustee Laura Clark was not present at the meeting.
The board also approved the 2025-26 compensation plan in a 6-0 vote.
The details
Features of the adopted budget includes:
- A general fund budget of $165.1 million in revenues and $172.2 million in expenditures, resulting in a $7.1 million shortfall
- A debt service budget of $25.4 million in revenues and $25.1 million in expenditures, resulting in a $400,000 surplus
- A child nutrition budget of $5.9 million in revenues and $5.8 million in expenditures, resulting in a $100,000 surplus
- An estimated tax rate of $0.8323
Chief Financial Officer Chris Scott said House Bill 2, an $8.5 billion school funding bill adopted during the most recent Texas legislative session, was not finalized enough to implement in the budget ahead of EISD's 2025-26 fiscal year, which starts July 1.
Scott anticipates bill revisions to continue throughout the summer and that by August it will be "pretty close" to what its actual budget impact will be.
What they're saying
Troy, one of the dissenting votes, suggested splitting the vote between the three budgets and said he would vote for the debt service and child nutrition budgets and against the general fund budget, but the counter motion ultimately failed.
"This is a massive hit to the fund balance," Troy said. "If I had been on the board, I would have been advocating that we took stricter efforts, we made harder decisions, and we found a way to shave off the deficit. ... It is my hope that in the future, as we work for next year's budget, that we can do a budget where we're able to look at these costs over the course of the year, and how we can generate revenue, and what we can do on the enrollment piece."
Another detail
The board voted May 22 to postpone adopting the 2025-26 compensation plan in a 5-2 vote with trustees Kelly Marwill and Catherine Walker dissenting.
Trustees said postponing the vote would allow them to "make an informed decision" on salaries once the Legislature concluded June 2, but Scott said district officials now believe they have enough guidance from HB 2 to pass the compensation plan.
The adopted plan, which will result in a district contribution of $430,350, includes:
- Salary increases designated by the state through HB 2's teacher retention allotment, which includes $2,500 for teachers with 3-4 years of experience and $5,000 for teachers with 5+ years of experience
- Salary increases of 1.1% across employee categories defined in HB 2 as "support," including teachers with 0-2 years of experience, nurses and librarians
- Salary increases of 1.1% across employee categories defined in HB 2 as "administrative" or "other"
- Maintaining the district employee benefits contribution at $473 per month
The board is slated to adopt the tax rate in August once the certified property values are received in July.
