The budget includes $193 million for the general fund, $56 million in debt services and about $6.2 million for child nutrition.
Trustees Becky St. John, Coley Canter and Jorge Rodriguez voted against the budget, citing concerns with how the budget was balanced.
“At the end of the day,” Rodriguez said at the meeting, the budget is not balanced.
The adopted budget includes several adjustments that cut spending over multiple categories by more than $4.44 million to align expenses with revenues. The adjustments include $3 million for instruction; about $94,000 for co-curricular and extracurricular activities; and expenses for social work, school leadership, transportation and other services, according to the slideshow presented during the meeting.
That presentation to the board stated "the district will continue to evaluate positions and staffing and make reductions through attrition where feasible." It also noted if reductions throughout the year do not cover the budget shortfall, the district will need to amend its budget at the end of the year.
The 2022-23 proposed tax rate is $1.1366 per $100 valuation for the school year. The tax rate is broken down into a proposed maintenance and operations tax rate of $0.9149 and a proposed debt service tax rate of $0.2217, which is a reduction of about $0.10 from the 2021-22 rate.
The final tax rate will not be approved by the board until August or September, GCISD Chief Financial Officer DaiAnn Mooney said.
For the general operating budget, payroll costs for the district make up 87.11% of the budget at around $115 million.
The board of trustees also voted 4-3 at the meeting to approve raises for staff. Starting teacher salaries will begin at $57,000. Teachers, nurses and librarians will receive a raise of 2% of midpoint, while other employees, including paraprofessionals, custodians and attendance clerks, will receive a midpoint raise of 1%. The pay increase will be at least $1,250 for all teachers, nurses and librarians, according to the budget presentation.
St. John proposed during the meeting that the district increase wages for all staff by 2% of the midpoint, but that motion failed in a 3-4 vote by the board.
The budget includes a projected enrollment for the school year of 13,883 students. The recapture payment, also known as a Robin Hood payment, to the state is projected to be $54.6 million.
The child nutrition budget is broken up between the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program and the Enterprise Fund program. About $4 million was approved for the NSLP and SBP, which provide adequate food for low-income students. Since GCISD’s Grapevine High School and Colleyville Heritage High School do not participate in the national programs, they must be accounted for in an enterprise fund, which makes up about $1.4 million of the child nutrition budget.
Mooney said the budget right now is “a plan” since the district must “adopt a budget in June for a school year that starts in August.” Budget plans may be amended as the school year progresses, Mooney said.
Classes for the 2022-23 school year will start Aug. 17.
Below is a copy of the budget presentation shown during the June 20 meeting.
