More than half of the state’s school districts are facing budget shortfalls this year while also navigating the conclusion of federal stimulus funds, forcing districts to make hard decisions related to staffing and programming. In addition, districts are experiencing an increase in educators considering leaving the profession due to a lack of funds, increased class sizes and lower salaries.

“We have the unfunded safety mandates from the state that added to what we have to spend money on, we had decreased funding from the federal government for our school health and related services,” Georgetown ISD Superintendent Devin Padavil said. “It was this perfect storm of decreased revenue and increased expenses that have hit school districts, and there's no easy solution in sight.”

With the 2025 legislative session set to convene on Jan. 14, public education advocacy group Raise Your Hand Texas and Austin-area school districts hope to see multiple changes made, including accounting for inflation, raising teacher salaries and reaching the national average in per-student spending.

Funding challenges

Texas lawmakers last increased the basic allotment—the foundation of how the state funds per-student funding—in 2019 to $6,160. However, Texas is still more than $4,000 below the national average in per-student funding, according to Raise Your Hand Texas.

Additionally, inflation has gone up 22% since 2019, said Bob Popinski, Senior Director of Policy for Raise Your Hand Texas.

“The basic allotment would need to be an additional $1,300 or so just to give the same purchasing power to districts that they had in 2019,” he said.

While many Central Texans have felt the impacts of inflation when it comes to gas prices and the cost of food and supplies, it affects school districts as well. Many districts, including GISD, have had to adopt a shortfall budget to accommodate rising costs and increased school requirements.

“We eliminated $3.5 million from our expenditures in order to try to close the budget deficit, and we are still at a $4.5 million deficit going into this year,” Padavil said. “We are just under the top third of Central Texas school districts in terms of teacher compensation, so we still have room to be competitive, but we don't have the funds available, and I've run out of things to cut.”

According to Padavil, GISD passed a school bond last year and isn’t considering discussing a voter-approval tax rate election until 2025.

Another issue Central Texas school districts are navigating is an increased number of special education students who are identified or enrolled in school districts. When this occurs, the districts are legally required to meet those services. Frequently, school districts are required to hire additional staff, regardless of whether they have the financial resources to do so.

“In the 2023 legislative session, House and Senate members agreed on a two-year budget for 2024-25 that would have boosted state aid to schools by $4 billion,” said Donna Howard, House Representative for HD 48. “Existing state law required that at least 30%—$1.2 billion—pay for salary increases for teachers, librarians, school nurses and counselors. But the governor's demands for private school vouchers were tied to the $4 billion which effectively killed any new state aid needed to deal with rising per-student costs, leaving our school districts to cope with double-digit inflation and deficit budgets. That's why school districts are having to ask voters to approve school tax rate increases, ironically reducing the amount of property tax relief the Legislature intended.”

Along with special education resources, all school districts are now required to have an armed security guard on each campus, part of House Bill 3 which was passed during the last legislative session. The school safety allotment was increased by only 28 cents per student and $15,000 per campus, which is well below the $90,000-$100,000 that it costs schools to keep a guard on-site at each school.

“All of this was impacting school districts as they adopted their budgets,” Popinski said. “So what you end up with is school districts adopting a deficit budget or having to cut programs, or not giving a serious pay raise to their teachers. The best estimate is that 50% to 60% of Texas school districts adopted deficit budgets this year.”

Teacher retention and education

With teachers not seeing any kind of salary increase to account for recent inflation, along with other challenges, a 2024 Charles Butt Foundation poll found 78% of teachers are considering leaving the profession.

Salary is one of the primary reasons teachers are leaving their jobs. The average teacher salary in Texas is about $60,700, which puts the state at 30th in the nation. The Charles Butt Foundation poll showed a majority of those teachers would like around a $15,000 pay raise to have a livable wage and be comparable with other working college-educated graduates.

Many teachers are feeling added pressure and are struggling with larger class sizes due to unfilled positions or positions that have been cut at their campus. Budget cuts have also eliminated positions such as behavioral specialists, whose presence allows teachers to focus greater attention on academic instruction.

“In eliminating the $3.5 million deficit, we increased class sizes at middle schools and high schools, and our teachers are feeling it,” Padavil said. “They notice that there are more students in class. Even a few added students make it harder to reach the needs of every learner. Thankfully, we still have one of the lowest class size ratios in the area, but that is harder to maintain in this financial environment.”

Aside from increasing enrollment, attendance and tax rates, there are only a few ways school districts can increase the money available to them. If approved by the board in November, the Texas State Board of Education would provide money for high-quality instructional materials, around $60 per student. However, this only helps with curriculum and lesson planning, not with providing a higher salary to teachers.

The Teacher Incentive Allotment Program does offer the opportunity to pay teachers a six-figure salary, but out of the about 376,000 teachers in Texas, there are only about 25,000 able to participate in the program.

“We need to pay all of our teachers for their expertise and the contributions they make in their profession,” Popinski said. “They are educating Texas’ future workforce.”

Legislative policy changes

As the 89th Texas Legislature draws closer, some of the changes Raise Your Hand Texas and school districts would like to see considered include:

• Increase state funding for public schools, and update the basic allotment funding amount to account for inflation of $1,300 per student.

• Increase teacher salaries by approximately $15,000 on average to attract and retain teachers.

• Add funding for teacher specialists and instructional coaches.

• Incorporate an annual automatic inflation adjustment mechanism into school funding formulas.

“Funding is always a problem,” Popinski said. “If you kind of go down the list, we need a lot of support out there. It is a big heavy lift going into the next legislative session on the funding front.”

Texans residents who want to learn more about funding public schools and the overall mission of Raise Your Hand Texas should sign up to advocate for public schools during the upcoming session with Raise Your Hand Texas. To stay up to date on the Texas Legislature, visit the legislature’s website here.

The above story was produced by Community Impact's Senior Multi Platform Journalist Sierra Rozen with information solely provided by the local business as part of its "sponsored content" purchase through our advertising team.