HISD school board debates budget

Months of intense debates about Houston ISD budget proposals that have centered on teacher raises and making funding more equitable across schools continued Thursday night, as the Board of Education was unable to approve the district’s proposed $2 billion budget by press time.

The nation’s seventh largest school district could face an estimated $106.8 million budget deficit during the coming school year, leading officials to propose taking from the district’s rainy day fund to help pay for its day-to-day operations. The district’s total property taxes would stay the same — about $1.21 per $100 of taxable property value.

Under the proposal, all teachers would get a raise. The proposed budget includes salary increases for teachers based on years of experience. Those with five or fewer years of experience would receive a 2 percent salary boost, and those with 16 or more years of experience receiving a 4 percent increase.

Zeph Capo, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers union, said that the increases are a step in the right direction but will not be enough to make Houston ISD more competitive with its neighboring districts.

“I hope that it’s enough to keep every one of the teachers I know who have been offered jobs in other districts to stay here another year until we can fix this,” Capo said. “This is a Band-Aid, but we need a long-term fix.”

It is the first spending plan to be advanced by Superintendent Richard Carranza, who came to the district in September. While many hailed Carranza at his hiring as someone who would be a change-maker, the budget proposed few changes some had expected to see, including changes to magnet funding.

Carranza said he held off on some of those changes — particularly changes to how magnet programs are funded — so he could gather input on potential shake-ups. He said by next January he would present the board with a proposal about magnet schools.

“We made a conscious decision — I own it, a decision that we’re not going to destabilize our schools this year,” Carranza said of changes to magnet funding.

The newly proposed budget would see the district dip below the amount of money it is required to keep in its general fund balance, essentially a rainy day fund districts are mandated to maintain, due to its budget shortfall. The district will have about $308 million on hand for emergencies at the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year, but that number could drop to about $246 million by the end of next year. That’s about $29 million less than it is supposed to keep on hand.

Some of those reserve funds would be spent to give district staff raises. District budget officials increased the amount dedicated to salary increases from $26 million presented at a June 15 workshop to about $48 million Thursday after board members groused over how little salary increases for teachers and support staff would be. District officials also proposed cutting funding for Superintendent Richard Carranza’s Achieve 180 campus turnaround plan by more than $8 million to help pay for raises.

Because of anticipated deficits, Trustee Rhonda Skillern-Jones proposed having schools give any extra money they have back to the central district offices.

Trustee Anna Eastman did not support the amendment and said when the district previously forced schools to give all of their extra money to the district, school leaders would go on spending sprees to ensure they’d keep their same level of funding for the coming school year.

But Skillern-Jones said: “If schools didn’t spend money on their needs, that money doesn’t need to be returned to those schools,” Skillern-Jones said. “We need that money because of the budget deficit.”