At the Oct. 16 meeting of the JISD board of trustees, Chief Financial Officer Tony Kingman said that an audit of the state’s 2024 property value study added $1.75 million to district revenue.
With the additional revenue, the JISD FY 2025-26 shortfall now sits at $27.57 million, according to board documents.
How it works
According to the Office of the Texas Comptroller, a school district property value study is conducted once every two years to determine a district’s total taxable value.
This ensures equitable distribution of education funding, according to the comptroller’s office. Districts with less taxable property value per student receive more state dollars for each pupil than districts with more value per student.
According to the Texas Government Code, the comptroller's office can audit a district's taxable value upon request and revise the final district findings. A preliminary study released by the comptroller in January assigned $14.92 billion of taxable value to the district, while the final study lowered the figure to $14.75 billion.
What else?
According to board documents, the JISD shortfall has decreased from $37.22 million on July 1 to $27.57 million on Oct. 16.
Kingman said that since the board of trustees began the process of preparing for the FY 2025-26 budget, roughly $10 million in cuts can be attributed to the board. He said that “big items that drove the reduction” include the elimination of vacant district positions and the increase of student-teacher ratios.
“We’ve been working all along making sure that we are working on rightsizing, making sure that we are looking at positions, making sure that we are cutting wherever we can,” trustee Suzanne Kenoyer said.
Next steps
District voters have begun the process of deciding Judson’s Proposition A, a voter-approval tax rate election, or VATRE, that would add roughly $21 million to district revenue, Kingman said. Early voting runs through Oct. 31.
If the VATRE passes after the Nov. 4 election, the shortfall would be roughly $6.5 million, Kingman said.
