The second workshop was held Jan. 16, where trustees and staff talked about possible challenges for attendance, bills passed by the state Legislature and a potential voter-approval tax rate election, or VATRE, in November.
In the FY 2024-25 budget, the board of trustees approved a budget with a nearly $36 million shortfall, reduced by the use of disaster pennies to around $25 million at the beginning of the fiscal year.
What they’re saying
At the end of the third six weeks of the school year, the enrollment at JISD was at 23,448 with an average daily attendance of 93.8%, or 21,038 students, Chief Financial Officer Larry Guerra said. School districts receive state funding based on the average daily attendance number.
While funding is based on average daily attendance, the district determines staffing based on enrollment numbers, which are used to decide classroom sizes and other programs.
Trustee José Macias said there are a lot of variables going into the planning for the next budget cycle, including the possibility of more state funding for districts, the approval of school vouchers and other issues being discussed during the legislative session, which began Jan. 14.
Due to the variables, Macias recommended that staff look into different budget options to prevent last minute changes if the legislator passes bills that impact school districts.
Looking ahead
Guerra said the district is looking into the possibility of calling a VATRE to keep the district at the tax rate level as the FY 2024-25 budget.
“We want to set the district up for the future to make sure we can move forward for the years to come,” he said.
In the FY 2024-25 budget, the board of trustees approved the use of disaster pennies, which reduces the interest and sinking portion of the tax rate to increase the maintenance and operations portion. This strategy helped reduce the budget shortfall by around $12 million, but will expire at the end of the budget cycle.
Superintendent Milton “Rob” Fields III said the goal of a VATRE would be to keep the tax rate at the current level. Since disaster pennies increased the tax rate beyond voter approval rate, it would require voter approval to keep the rate at the FY 2024-25 rate of $1.0346 per $100 valuation.
“If we want to continue with that $12 million, we would have to go to the voters and get them to approve to keep the tax rate the same,” Fields said.
While there is no official action on pursuing a tax rate election, the established timeline for a potential election would have voters considering the proposal during the November election, which would be shortly after the start of the budget cycle for fiscal year 2025-26.
Trustee Monica Ryan highlighted that the state would likely require the district to reduce the overall tax rate due to tax rate compression.
According to the Texas Education Agency, local compression uses individual district property value growth compared to 2.5% to determine the maximum compressed tax rate, or MCR, using the prior-year MCR for each district as a starting point.
Stay tuned
Should the board decide to pursue a VATRE, the election would need to be called by the end of day Aug. 18, according to the Texas secretary of state election calendar.
Additional discussion regarding the budget will be held during upcoming budget workshops and board meetings. The next workshop is planned for Feb. 11, and the budget is anticipated to be adopted in June.
