At Tuesday night's special-called Round Rock ISD board meeting, trustees discussed appointing a board member to fill a vacant seat and approved a budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year. Here are three things to take away from the Tuesday night meeting. 1. The budget is increasingly made up of more property tax revenue and less state funding. RRISD went from receiving $42.2 million from the state in FY 2016-17 to receiving a projected $26.1 million in FY 2017-18. Meanwhile, property tax revenue is projected to fund a much greater portion of the district's budget. In FY 2016-17, tax revenue composed $310.5 million of the budget. In FY 2017-18, tax revenue is projected to make up $341.2 million of RRISD's budget. Another key factor in this year's budget is the introduction of recapture payments, which are payments required by the state when a district is deemed property-rich by state standards. The coming school year will be the first in which RRISD makes these payments, costing the district roughly $9 million. 2. Recapture payments have a big effect on the district's tax rate. The board evaluated how much of an effect shifting the tax rate from $1.04 to $1.03, $1 or $0.98 per $100 of valuation would have. If the district were to lower the tax rate by 1 cent to $1.03, recapture payments would increase by roughly $10,000 to the state through a quirk in the state funding formula. State funding would also decrease by roughly $3 million. Should the tax rate decrease to $1 per $100 of valuation, recapture payments would increase from $9.71 million to $9.72 million, and the state's portion of funding would decrease from $26.12 million to $14.61 million. And if the district decreased the tax rate to $0.98, recapture payments would decrease to $9.56 million, and state funding would fall to $14.12 million.
3. The board decided to host forums to answer questions about potential candidates to fill a vacant board seat that will eventually be filled through an appointment. The seat is vacant after trustee Paul Tisch announced he would be resigning from his position in late May. Per state law, the vacant seat must be filled within a 180-day period from Tisch's resignation. That deadline is set for Dec. 7. The trustees will hold forums July 20 at Round Rock High School and July 25 at a location to be determined to answer questions from the public. Applications will likely go online before the end of this week. The last time there was a vacancy on the board, 37 individuals applied for the board seat, resulting in the appointment of trustee Edward Hanna.