Hays CISD passes budget of nearly $250M for 2020-21 school year

With uncertainty of what the new school year looks like because of coronavirus, the Hays CISD Board of Trustees unanimously passed a budget that begins July 1 and goes through 2020-21 school year.

The budget shows balanced revenues and expenditures of $249,985,771 for the next year.

The board also approved raises for its employees and will likely pull back on its $218 million bond proposal that was moved from a May election to November, citing too many questions about what the school district will need on the other side of coronavirus.

The budget represents a $14 million increase (5.94%) over the original 2019-20 budget and a $7.3 million increase (3.02%) over the amended budget for the last school year. It was based on the projection of 668 new students driving enrollment in the district to 21,467, while paying for 3,146 full-time employees, making it one of the largest employers in Hays County.

Some of the missing pieces to the puzzle could come at the June 23 announcement from the Texas Education Association, outlining options for instruction when the school year starts in August.

Officials expect options that include in-class and online instruction, which is likely affect the budget, along with transportation.

Superintendent Eric Wright said the TEA guidelines of class sizes of 25%-75%, funding assistance for online programming, results of parent surveys and the current surge in coronavirus cases all could adjust the outlook before the budget year begins next week.

“We will build our services and programs around that data,” Wright said.