Chief Financial Officer Scott Wrehe gave a presentation during the June 2 work session explaining the increased expenditures and budget reductions for FY 2025-26.
How we got here
District staff started by looking at the $4.5 million shortfall that was adopted for fiscal year 2024-25 and then considered factors such as the decrease in enrollment and increasing property value.
Then, district staff looked at the increase in expenditures they would need to spend including setting up a new transportation budget and increasing the budget for substitute teachers.
This gave the district a projected beginning shortfall of $24.5 million before calculating in the anticipated funding from House Bill 2 and an additional $11.48 million in budget reductions to help deal with the projected enrollment decline.
“So right now, very early, we’re saying roughly a $9 million deficit,” LISD Superintendent Lori Rapp said. “We definitely believe we can continue to tighten this deficit up and ultimately can bring forward on Monday a compensation resolution for a 3% of the midpoint raise for all other staff.”
More details
District staff have added a 3% raise for all staff not including teachers, since funding for teacher raises are included in HB 2. The raises would cost the district $4.45 million.
“Since we weren’t able to do raises last year and many of our peers still did, we’ve lost some ground, as we know, so a 3% for all other positions would hopefully at least help with that,” Rapp said.
The district is also wanting to give pay raises to substitute teachers, as well as increase the fill rate from 61% to 81%, Chief Human Resource Officer Melissa Cobb said. This is expected to cost the district $5.1 million, though numbers have not been finalized.
“[This] will allow us to remain competitive with the surrounding districts,” Cobb said.
Looking ahead
On June 9, staff will bring forward a compensation resolution for a 3% raise to non-teacher staff. The tax rate will be adopted in August and district staff will continue to review the budget throughout the summer to further reduce the shortfall for FY 2025-26.
