On Monday night, Frisco ISD board of trustees approved the 2018-19 school year budget, which will include a 3 percent pay raise for all staff and raise the beginning teacher salary. FISD Chief Financial Officer Kimberly Smith said the district would finish the 2017-18 school year with a $41 million surplus. Thanks to the surplus, a portion of that will go toward the pay increases and the rest will go into a reserve fund. The budget also adjusts the beginning salary for new teachers from $50,500 to $53,000 for the 2018-19 school year. Existing teachers will receive additional pay scale adjustments to ensure they meet or exceed the hire-in salary for their years of service. The budget also allocated funds for new campus personnel for the new four schools opening in August—Talley Elementary, Liscano Elementary, Lawler Middle School and Memorial High School. The 2018-19 budget is based on a total tax rate of $1.448, or $0.012 less than the current tax rate of $1.46. The decreased tax rate represents the rollback tax rate calculated by the 2018 State Comptroller’s tax rate calculation worksheet for school districts, Smith said. The tax rate was determined on preliminary estimates of certified taxable values and are only for budget planning purposes, Smith said. The district is not locked into that rate. Actual 2018-19 tax rates will be adopted by the school board in August after receipt of the certified property values. Smith said the school board has a couple of months to decide whether the tax rate should remain the same or if it needs to be changed.