What you need to know
Administrators have shared they are experiencing heightened cost pressures this year compared to recent years due to increases in the cost of insurance, fuel and other goods vital to the operation of public schools.
"You've probably heard the word 'inflation' many times," Round Rock ISD Superintendent Hafedh Azaiez said to the board of trustees in a May 18 meeting. "I'm sure you feel it yourself as you go out to buy groceries or if you have to fix something in your house. Everything is costing more."
These rising costs come as the basic allotment—one of the primary kinds of state funding calculated using a district's average daily attendance—has not been increased since 2019, when it was raised to $6,160.
Since this adjustment, Azaiez estimates costs have gone up about 20%. If the basic allotment were adjusted for inflation, it would be closer to $7,342 per student in 2024, per projections from Hays CISD using Texas Education Agency data.
In June, when Round Rock ISD passed a $466 million balanced budget, it was one of few expected to do so in Central Texas, board President Amber Landrum said. The district identified $30 million in budget cuts to have its expenditures equal its revenues.
Similarly, Bastrop ISD was able to pass a balanced $173.12 million budget in June after making cuts.
About 43% of school districts in Texas are expecting to make budget cuts going into fiscal year 2024-25, per the Texas Association of School Business Officials.
Despite cutting costs, many districts are expected to adopt some of their largest shortfalls in recent years.
North East ISD in San Antonio; San Marcos and Hays CISDs; and Austin, Dripping Springs, Eanes, Georgetown, Hutto and Leander ISDs have passed shortfall budgets or are planning to pass budgets with shortfalls.
What are the options?
Throughout the budget planning process, area school administrators shared different strategies for reducing their planned expenditures, such as eliminating unfilled positions, increasing class sizes and reducing departmental budgets.
In several cases, such as in GISD, staffing was decreased by eliminating unfilled positions and reassigning staff as needed, Superintendent Devin Padavil said.
Along with cutting vacant positions, Lake Travis ISD passed its lowest compensation increase in over a decade at 1% for FY 2024-25.
Liberty Hill ISD—which is projecting its largest budget shortfall in recent years at $8.57 million—may ask voters to approve a tax rate increase through a voter-approval tax rate election, or VATRE. If approved by voters, this will allow the district to have a higher tax rate than otherwise allowed by the state, per the TEA. If a VATRE is not called for November, the district’s fund balance is projected to be completely depleted by 2026, according to district information.
Area school districts have carried out the following efforts to reduce expenditures and trim budgets:
Position cuts
- 30 positions were eliminated via attrition or reassignment in GISD.
- 140-plus positions were eliminated from the FY 2024-25 budget in NEISD.
- Nearly $1 million in new, unfilled positions are proposed to be cut in LHISD.
- $2 million in positions were reduced through attrition and vacancies in LTISD.
- 10% reductions in departmental budgets were made in RRISD.
- Nearly $400,000 in campus and department budgets are proposed to be cut in LHISD.
- Around $900,000 in department budgets were cut in Leander ISD.
Looking ahead to January and the start of the next legislative session, many districts have established school funding as their top priority.
Member districts have asked the Texas Association of School Boards to advocate on their behalf, in addition to communicating with community members about advocating for increased state funding.
This comes as Texas lawmakers have attempted to tie increases in basic allotment funding to the approval of an educational savings account program that would have provided public funds to families who choose to enroll their children in private schools.
In legislative sessions held in 2023, a measure including a $540 increase to the basic allotment failed after legislators stripped House Bill 1 of a provision including educational savings accounts.
Going into the next legislative session, interim charges released in May by Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan did not include increases to the basic allotment. These directives for house committees to study specific issues did include the examination of educational opportunity through educational savings accounts, increases in uncertified teachers and a mandate to have an armed security guard at every Texas public school that went into effect in 2023.
