Photo Courtesy Hutto ISDHISD superintendent tackles financial and academic issues
Hutto ISD hired Superintendent Doug Killian in August 2010, and in his three years with HISD, Killian has faced challenges including cuts in state funding and the implementation of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR tests. In the 2013–14 school year, Killian plans to continue focusing on increasing the district's rainy day fund and its students' standardized test scores.
What financial issues are the district facing?
When [I] first came into the district, we had just passed the third deficit budget in a row, and the [population] growth had started slowing down. It was starting to impact the district's ability to run programs. Some of our [enrollment] projections weren't keeping up, so some of the construction had gotten a little ahead of itself. We had excess space, and [the district] didn't make it quite as efficient as it could have been. I had already been listening and hearing all about the state [public school funding] challenges. When I came into the district and saw us depleting the [general] fund balance ... and [knowing] the state was about to start cutting funding, I immediately knew we had to do something.
What steps did the district take?
The first thing we started doing in the 2010–11 school year [was] eliminating positions by attrition. During the course of the year, as people left, we evaluated to see if we really needed the position. We really tightened our belts that year, too, and at the end of the year, we ended up not being in a deficit budget. After the state cuts were announced, [we had to cut] 76 or 77 positions to make our budget balanced for the 2010–11 school year, and we [also] closed Veterans' Hill [Elementary School] and moved fifth grade to middle school. It was some creative work that got us to the point where we could close one campus, but it saved us $1 million annually.
Is the district looking at reopening Veterans' Hill immediately?
It's pretty important—we want to get it back open. In looking at our growth this year so far, the bulk of it has been at the elementary grade level. That's one reason [all elementary students] won't fit—that grade span has grown tremendously over the past few years. We will have to look at what options we have. Because of our growth at the elementary level, we are concerned about capacity. If we move fifth grade back down to elementary, we will be over capacity at all elementary campuses, and our middle schools will be under capacity. That isn't an efficient use of our facilities, so we need to go back and look at what we can do.
