This higher rate, which was recommended by district administration, is expected to bring an additional $33.9 million in revenue for FY 2024-25 as CFISD faces an estimated $77.5 million budget shortfall following budget cuts.
Former trustee Tom Jackson, who served on the CFISD board from 2011-23, urged the board to approve the administration’s recommendation.
“Previously this year, you asked teachers to sacrifice with a smaller raise and more work. You asked parents to sacrifice with transit to and from campus being much more difficult. Tonight, ask the taxpayers to sacrifice the least of all to help safeguard academic attainment and the safety for our students,” he said.
The breakdown
The board approved a property tax rate of $1.0869 per $100 valuation—up from $1.0811 per $100 valuation in FY 2023-24.
Chief Financial Officer Karen Smith said the owner of a home valued at $350,000 will see an increase on their tax bill of about $10.44 year over year assuming no change in their property value.
Community Impact previously reported CFISD could take advantage of “disaster pennies” when adopting the FY 2024-25 tax rate. According to the state’s public school funding system, this can happen in the year following a disaster declaration to help districts cover costs incurred by events such as hurricanes and floods.
CFISD will incorporate two disaster pennies into the tax rate after seeing a spike in insurance costs following a January 2023 tornado that hit southeast Harris County, Smith said.
District officials said the additional revenue could help offset the budget shortfall, freeing up a portion of the district’s fund balance. This means if the board agreed to amend the budget at a future meeting, some of what was cut from the FY 2024-25 budget could be reinstated.
Those opposed
One of the two opposing votes came from trustee Christine Kalmbach, who said she was against raising property taxes. Trustee Natalie Blasingame also opposed the motion and said she didn’t want to approve a tax rate increase unless the board reinstated bus service for all students.
Transportation was one of the areas affected by budget cuts; the board unanimously approved limited eligibility criteria as part of the FY 2024-25 budget. At the Oct. 7 meeting, Kalmbach said three students were injured on their way to school during the week of Oct. 1.
“My hesitation would be putting language in there that could be considered muddying the proverbial waters in that we’re referencing an expenditure that, on its face, wouldn’t be applicable for the disaster pennies,” Sims said.
What’s next
Blasingame asked for the discussion of reinstating bus service to be included on the November board meeting agenda for consideration, but no official action was taken on the matter Oct. 7.
Superintendent Doug Killian said if the board were to approve bringing bus service back for all students, the process would likely take until early 2025.
“It’s not some overnight thing where we can just reinstate the routes—we would need to reroute everything,” he said, also noting the transportation department currently has more than 50 vacancies.
