In a nutshell
While district staff has until May to present trustees a balanced budget, preliminary estimates demonstrate the 2025-26 budget will be more restrictive than the year prior, Chief Financial Officer Bryan Guinn said in the Feb. 24 board meeting.
If adopted under the same framework of the 2024-25 budget, FBISD would face a $16 million gap that would grow to $24.5 million if the district provides a 2% raise for teachers, Guinn said.
“It is not currently feasible to do a raise without the state doing something to change public education funding or the district making dramatic cuts in order to do that,” he said.
How it works
The state’s basic allotment of $6,160 per student has remained unchanged since the 2019, according to the Texas Education Agency website.
However, FBISD received $9,400 per student in the 2022-23 school year when accounting for additional state funding for students receiving special education, career and technical education, and bilingual services, Guinn said.
While FBISD has received 23% more in state revenue per student since the 2013-14 school year, inflation costs have outpaced budgetary increases at 30.5%, Guinn said.
“I'm not going to say [$9,400 is] not enough, but it does create challenges when we have not kept up with the rate of inflation,” Guinn said.
How we got here
Despite FBISD seeing only a 13.5% increase in student enrollment since the 2013-14 school year, there’s been a 25.7% rise in staffing to fill the demands of 11 new schools and the growing population of special education students, Guinn said.
Even if the school openings didn’t result in a faster enrollment growth, the district had to provide staff for each of the 11 new schools, Guinn said.
“As we've seen with the [new schools], the enrollment hasn't necessarily materialized when we expected and where we expected,” Guinn said.
Additionally, a 148% increase in the special education population since 2013-14 has required additional staff such as licensed specialists in school psychology, speech language pathologists, diagnosticians, and other classroom support aids, Guinn said.
What's changing
Guinn said there are some key differences between the FY 2024-25 budget and preliminary proposals for FY 2025-26, including:
- $3.22 million in revenue loss caused by cuts to state allotment and federal medicaid services for students with disabilities though there is an increase in local revenue through property tax.
- $13.7 million increased spending caused by teacher step pay raises, Ferndell Henry Elementary School opening in August, preparations for Middle School No. 16 opening in 2026, inflationary increases for service contracts, and costs associated with the $1.26 billion bond from May 2023.
When reviewing funding alternatives, Guinn noted FBISD could utilize a one-time tax increase, or "disaster pennies," as permitted by the state following Hurricane Beryl. Without holding an election, the board could use the disaster pennies to allow the district to increase the tax rate for one year.
Additionally, the district is monitoring existing budget items through an ongoing cost-saving audit, Guinn said. Gibson Consulting Group will present results by June and will share any immediate recommendations in the meantime.
“We are preparing for the worst, assuming that there's no change to public education funding, but if there is a change, we will be prepared to respond to that as well,” Guinn said.
Next steps
District staff will present a balanced budget for approval in May, just in time to see the outcome of the 89th Texas Legislature, which began Jan. 14, Guinn said. At that point, the board will schedule a public hearing for the tax rate and budget.
