Long story short
As previously reported by Community Impact, trustees voted Aug. 13 to place the district's first ever VATRE on the Nov. 5 ballot. If approved, additional property tax revenue would have gone toward:
- Reducing the district's $12 million budget shortfall to less than $1 million
- Funding 2% pay raises for all staff
- Funding additional pay equity adjustments for teachers with three to 24 years of experience
However, as voters did not approve SISD's VATRE—with more than 63% of voters rejecting the proposition—the district's Financial Services team updated the FY 2024-25 budget accordingly and presented the changes to the board on Nov. 12 for consideration.
Budget explained
SISD Chief Financial Officer Ann Westbrooks outlined a slate of updates that had been made to the FY 2024-25 budget since it's passage in June. Among the budget updates were several related to the VATRE, including a $20.2 million decrease in general fund revenue, which Westbrooks said included $11.2 million that would've been the state aid portion of the VATRE and $9 million that would've been generated from property taxes. Westbrooks also noted a net decrease of $6.4 million in general fund expenses due to raises being cut.
"We had $8.3 million in our districtwide budget that was held for raises and so the raises that would've taken place had the VATRE been successful are now being removed from the budget," Westbrooks said during the meeting.
However, Westbrooks added general fund expenses also increased due to the VATRE. The district spent approximately $55,000 to print and mail materials to the SISD community to inform residents about the VATRE. Additionally, Westbrooks said while the district had budgeted $200,000 to cover the costs of holding both the VATRE and trustee elections on Nov. 5, those costs ended up increasing by $43,000, so the budget was updated to reflect that change.
While trustee Carmen Correa requested a special meeting be called to allow trustees additional time to discuss the budget changes, Westbrooks said the budget review needed to be approved Nov. 12 in order to be submitted to the Texas Education Agency as part of the Public Education Information Management System, or PEIMS, process.
Trustees voted 5-0 to approve the budget review, with Board Secretary Kelly P. Hodges and trustee Deborah Jensen absent from the meeting.
Looking ahead
Prior to the budget review presentation, trustees also received a presentation on district optimization and long-term planning from Olin Parker, a principal consultant with Civic Solutions Group, or CSG. According to the firm's website, CSG partners with school districts across the U.S.—including neighboring district Aldine ISD—to provide data analysis and recommendations to district officials on how the district can best optimize its resources.
According to the presentation, possible elements of district optimization can include:
- Expanding popular programming
- Consolidating schools
- Closing schools
- Implementing new programming
- Redesigning campuses
- Implementing alternative models
"Right now, Spring [ISD] has an occupancy rate of about 61% in its buildings," Parker said during the presentation. "National best practices are generally regarded somewhere between 75%-90% and that represents 21,000 vacant seats when you look at the operational capacity of your facilities."
Parker said if SISD opted to work with CSG on district optimization and long-term planning, the process would take a minimum of five to six months and would include board and stakeholder feedback throughout the entire process.
"This is long-term work. This is about putting Spring ISD on a better fiscal and academic trajectory for the long term," Parker said. "The most important part of this work is putting kids in better quality facilities and higher performing schools."
SISD Superintendent Lupita Hinojosa noted if the district opted to move forward with optimization efforts, those plans wouldn't begin until the next fiscal year.
"The optimization discussion and project would be moving us into the 2025-26 budget," Superintendent Lupita Hinojosa said during the meeting. "I think we need to have some really deep conversations ... and it's important that we start that discussion as soon as possible."
What trustees are saying
Following both presentations, trustees agreed to call a special meeting to further discuss the FY 2024-25 budget.
"He called it 'optimization.' [Let]s just call it what it is—we may be looking at school closures," Correa said during the meeting. "We have a deficit, we have no more money coming in ... So I would just feel better about these numbers if we had a conversation solely dedicated just to the budget so we can go through and make sure that we are truly optimizing every dollar that we have."
Correa also raised concerns about the sustainability of projects included in the district's 2022 bond, such as the $141 million Education, Performance and Instruction Center, or EPIC.
"Without seeing something in writing that shows what [the long-term costs] are going to look like, to me that's hard to say 'Yeah, let's move forward' knowing that we are millions in the hole and we don't see any rescue coming," Correa said.
However, Board Vice President Winford Adams Jr. reiterated the need for the state to increase the basic allotment for school districts statewide—a figure that has remained stagnant since 2019.
"I think it's important to remember that we're not in this situation because we were imprudent with our money and the taxpayers' money. We're in this situation because ... [the state] did not increase our basic allotment for a very long time, while the costs of all goods and services was steadily increasing," Adams Jr. said during the meeting. "We'll have to have a conversation about whether we should punish our community and our students by denying them EPIC because I don't think it's the taxpayers in this community that voted down the VATRE—they didn't let us down. The legislature has been letting us down."
Trustees did not take any action on Nov. 12 regarding the district optimization and long-term planning presentation.
Emily Lincke contributed to this report.
