Tomball ISD set to approve $98.7 million budget for 2014-15

Tomball Independent School District will start the new school year with a balanced budget for the first time since 2010.

Jim Ross, finance director for the school district, presented the final budget for the 2014-15 school year to the district’s board of trustees during its monthly workshop June 9.

The general fund budget has a projected revenue of $98.7 million and estimated expenditures of $98.7 million going into 2015, which is an increase of $7.62 million in revenue, or 8.37 percent, Ross said.

The tax rate, which will have to be approved in September when the Harris County Appraisal District releases the taxable values, is projected to remain at $ 1.36 per $ 100 valuation. The total tax due on a home valued at $200,000 would be $2,516.

The budget also includes a 3 percent pay increase for staff, and overall increase in the minimum pay to $10 per hour for employees who were earning less, and an increase in starting teacher pay from $48,000 to $50,000, which is the highest pay for starting teachers among area school districts.

“This budget enables us to develop programs and initiatives in the classroom and it provides a pay raise for our employees,” said Tomball ISD Superinten- dentHuey Kinchen.

Tomball is considered one of the fastest growing school districts in the greater Houston area.

Much of the growth has happened in The Woodlands, where the district opened its first elementary campus in 2009, followed by campuses in the southern end of the district.

As a result, home values in the district have increased to $225,010 from $204,467 last year.

“We’ve got a lot of new homes being added to our value, and those have been in The Woodlands area, which is much more expensive than our average was before,” Ross said.

In May 2013, voters passed a $160 million bond referendum that will add four new schools — two in The Woodlands and two in Tomball — in 2015 and 2016.

Three of those schools, an elementary and intermediate campus in Tomball and an elementary campus in The Woodlands, will open in the fall of the 2015.

The planned junior high campus in The Woodlands will open in August 2016.

The district will host a public hearing on the budget on July 8 before it is adopted at the July 9 board meeting. The district’s fiscal year starts Sept. 1.