What you need to know
RRISD Chief Financial Officer Dennis Covington told the board of trustees that legislative changes around school funding implemented this year, combined with uncertainty about an increase to the homestead exemption, has projections for the budget somewhere between an $11 million shortfall and $5 million surplus.
The details
Covington said a ballot measure in the November election could see the homestead exemption increased from $100,000 to $140,000, potentially an $11 million reduction in property tax revenue. He said this puts RRISD in the company of several other districts in the state that may lose a significant amount of revenue, should the measure pass, as school districts are typically "held harmless" and provided additional state funding to make up the difference of funds lost.
Superintendent Hafedh Azaiez said RRISD has communicated with Commissioner of Education Mike Morath about the matter and that districts can expect to be made whole.
"It's going to be very hard for us to know how much the impact would be for us," Covington said. "We are projecting this, but [it] could be more, could be less. At the end of the day he promised all the legislators that that money should be given to school districts because that was passed in the last legislative session."
What's next?
Azaiez said the district will have a better idea of how funding will be addressed around March or February, when the Texas Education Agency will run a "settle up" analysis of enrollment to determine the amount of state funding the district will receive.
