According to district documents, general fund expenditures are $47.55 million above revenue, a shortfall that will be covered using the district’s general fund reserve.
Superintendent Paul Cruz said new additions of note to the budget include a $2 million investment to support dual language efforts, $1.6 million to support reading by grade level programs and $1 million for additional support to the district's read by three initiative. The district discussed additional investments at a meeting earlier this month.
In terms of staff compensation, the budget outlines $18.31 million in increases, including a 2% cost-of-living raise, $3.5 million for special education and bilingual stipends, and $2.15 million in incentives for classified staff, according to the district.
Ahead of the budget conversation, the board listened to prerecorded public comments from community members. For over an hour and 35 minutes, residents asked the district to consider divesting in the Austin ISD Police Department and to instead use money budgeted for policing on student and staff supports. The comments specifically supported points highlighted by the Austin Justice Coalition last week.
According to the speakers and the coalition, the district should work to divest in strategies that “support the school-to-prison pipeline," should reinvest in culturally responsible restorative justice practices, should set up key performance indicators and host annual board sessions to evaluate police performance, and should publish the police department budget and incident report data online in a transparent way.
Cruz said that the approved budget does not have any new allocations for district police officers. However, the budget does offer three new police department staff members, including a new social emotional learning position and two mental health threat specialists.
While a list of secondary priorities did include new officers, those priorities were not added to the budget or recommended by district staff, Cruz said.
Trustees said that they would be in favor of setting up performance indicators and reviewing the AISD PD, and for making more data available online.
