The district’s board of trustees approved the budget in a 6-0 vote June 20. Trustee Mary Humphrey was absent from the meeting.
“If we don’t start with a balanced budget, [then] spending will get totally out of control,” Board Member Tammy Nakamura said.
The gist
Chief Financial Officer Derick Sibley presented the budget's components to the trustees. The district’s budget is split into three pieces.
- The general operating fund budget is $215.23 million.
- The debt services budget is $49.28 million.
- The child nutrition budget is $6.49 million.
- Recapture, also known as Robin Hood, is a process that redistributes tax dollars from property-wealthy districts to those deemed property-poor by the Texas Education Agency.
- Golden pennies are pennies within a district’s maintenance and operations tax bill that are not subject to recapture payments. This funding does not require voter approval.
- Average daily attendance is used to determine the district’s funding per student. Currently, the basic allotment per student is $6,160 per student, according to data from the TEA.
Sibley said the district built the budget around three major assumptions.
- Board members adopt a fifth golden penny that would increase revenue by $2.1 million.
- Traditional enrollment is 12,218.
- iUniversity Prep enrollment is 1,400.
The current proposed tax rate is $1.0704 per $100 valuation, about $0.06 less than 2022-23’s rate of $1.1308 per $100 valuation. The tax rate is split between $0.8487 for maintenance and operations and $0.2217 for interest and sinking. Sibley said the board will need to approve the tax rate in August or September.
Currently, the Texas Legislature is in a special session to consider border security and property tax relief.
“We’re still going to have some current unknowns,” Sibley said. “[Legislators may] have more special sessions later on in the summer [or] early fall, so there’s still some unknowns of what might happen.”
