Fort Bend ISD’s 2026-27 budget is now expected to see a $35.9 million shortfall as the board of trustees prepares to vote in June, district officials said at a May 4 agenda review meeting.
The overview
Since the previous budget presentation April 13, Chief Financial Officer Bryan Guinn said the district has accumulated $8.8 million in additional savings from moving faculty into previously vacant positions after deciding on new boundary changes and closing seven primary schools in March.
When combining the $8.8 million with $10.9 million in savings from strategic reductions at the administrative level, the new total savings figure is $19.7 million.
Additionally, Guinn said there is $2.5 million in new revenue from the interest earnings pause in federal rate reductions and career pathway expansion.
Also of note
During the agenda review meeting, Deputy Superintendent of Operations Kathleen Brown said the district has not given any salary increases in three years, and no equity adjustments have been made in the past seven years, causing FBISD to fall behind neighboring districts in compensation.
Brown said this is due to budget constraints, no improvements to the compensation structure, expanding employee roles with no raises, in addition to other districts making regular adjustments to their pay scales.
Though FBISD’s starting teacher base pay is not as much as that of other districts, Brown said by the five-year threshold, FBISD meets the market, and then after 15 years, it exceeds it.
While a 2025 Texas Association of School Boards compensation study found the district performed well in certain areas, it recommended a general pay increase and equity and stipend adjustments, costing $37 million-$40 million to implement.
Since the district did and currently does not have access to those kinds of funds, Brown said there are still alternative forms of action.
“If we don’t do something now, or start taking small steps in that direction, then the future cost adjustments will cost us more over time because the equity gap continues to grow,” Brown said.
For the 2025-26 school year, FBISD launched several initiatives to improve employee pay, such as increasing starting teacher salaries, freezing health insurance premiums and a signing bonus for hard-to-fill positions.
However, most of those policies will not be carried over into the 2026-27 school year.
Brown said one way the district can incrementally assist with employee pay for next year is to enact $6.1 million in targeted compensation adjustments to multiple positions where the district has faltered the most compared to other districts, such as bus drivers, counselors, nurses and athletics.
In order to fund these changes, Brown said the district can use land sale profits from properties that are for sale or have been sold.
Mapping it out
When Guinn shared three distinct scenarios on how the funding for the targeted compensation adjustments would affect the 2026-27 financials, he recommended only proceeding with the compensation commitments already included in the budget.
This would allow FBISD to use $5.5 million from land sale funds to help reach the 90-day operating reserve benchmark.
Once additional land sale funds are obtained, Guinn said the budget can later be amended to ratify any targeted compensation adjustments the district can afford.
By going with that scenario, FBISD can not recruit employees using those rates because they will not be in place by July 1.
Next steps
The board will host a budget workshop May 11 at 5 p.m. before its regularly scheduled meeting.
There will be two more group meetings on the budget in May, with plans for the district to begin advertising the budget and tax rate public hearing by the end of the month, Guinn said.
The board is expected to vote on the budget in June and the tax rate in September.
