This shortfall rose in May when trustees approved roughly $22 million to increase teacher and staff pay 3% from the midpoint of their respective salaries, KISD Superintendent Ken Gregorski said. Trustees are set to approve the proposed budget Aug. 26, using the district’s reserve funds to offset costs.
“This was the most difficult budget that our teams have had to prepare in the past six years that I’ve served as superintendent,” he said.
Public education advocates and local district leaders are requesting an increase in school funding when lawmakers meet for the 89th Texas Legislature, which begins Jan. 14.
The overview
KISD’s expenditures year over year are growing and are set to reach almost $1.39 billion this year—up $53.64 million from FY 2023-24, according to budget documents. Gregorski said multiple factors contribute to this, including:
- High inflation
- Rising costs on software
- Rising property insurance policies
- Underfunded mandates from Texas’ last session, including school safety requirements
“You put that all together, and you see why public schools are really struggling with making budgets work to take care of all of our kids,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lamar CISD is going into the fiscal year with a roughly $537,740 surplus, which is due to property tax appraisals coming in higher than anticipated, Chief Financial Officer Jill Ludwig said.
However, LCISD won’t curb the challenges caused the way Texas funds public schools, Superintendent Roosevelt Nivens said at the June 25 board meeting. The district could need to call a voter-approval tax rate election to increase the district’s property tax revenue in the future.
“Lamar CISD is not going to be immune to our public school system funding and how we do business in the state of Texas," Nivens said. "Once that growth starts to slow down, we’re going to depend on the taxpayer to help us continue to be able to compete, give teacher raises and make sure the students have experiences.”
While there were several proposals in the 2023 legislative session to increase funding, state lawmakers didn’t pass a bill to allocate the $4.5 billion surplus in state education funds.
“There’s just a mix of things that are really pressuring school districts into having to make and adopt deficit budgets or cut programs, ... and that is a big problem moving into not only next school year, but the school year after,” said Bob Popinski, senior policy director for education policy nonprofit Raise Your Hand Texas.
KISD district staff have worked to lessen the shortfall from its original $32.4 million projection while balancing priorities, which include retaining all teachers and staff, and protecting core student programs, Gregorski said.
To do this, Gregorski said staff had to phase out or modify some programs to offset the shortfall, with the biggest savings being:
- $5 million: Changed instructional coaching model
- $2 million-$3 million: Increased the teacher-to-student ratio in secondary level class sizes by 0.5—a student for every two classrooms
However, data for 2023-24 and 2024-25, the school years when KISD faced budget shortfalls, wasn’t provided by the district as of press time.
KISD will use the district’s fund balance reserve to balance the budget this year, which is how it covered the $8.1 million deficit in the general fund in FY 2023-24, Chief Financial Officer Christopher Smith said at the July 29 board meeting. Districts must maintain a 90-day reserve fund balance to sustain the district’s operations if needed.
KISD officials didn’t provide KISD’s 90-day reserve goal by press time.
“Can we continue to close deficits of $25 million every year? No. But that's where we're hoping that the Legislature will step in and do something in future years," Gregorski said. "But for this year, I'm confident we're OK.”
There’s $21.2 billion available in additional state revenue right now for FY 2024-25, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said in a July 17 letter to lawmakers. That includes $4.5 billion that wasn’t spent on school district funding formulas last session, Popinski said.
Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, filed Senate Bills 1 and 2 during the 2023 session that would have funded public education, teacher stipends and private school vouchers. Creighton, chair of the Senate’s Committee on Education, said he believes there’s “strong support” to pass it this year.
“Anyone who asserts that we can’t deliver historic new funding for public schools while also providing school choice is ... grossly misinformed,” Creighton said in an email.
