(C) El Paso Matters.org This story was originally published by El Paso Matters.org and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . EPISD expects $12 million deficit, no raises amid school closures and consolidations [1] ['Claudia Lorena Silva', 'More Claudia Lorena Silva', 'El Paso Matters', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width'] Date: 2024-06-14 The El Paso Independent School District has joined the growing list of Texas schools expected to face a revenue shortfall in the 2024-25 school year as it prepares to adopt a $542 million budget with a $12.1 million deficit. On top of that, the district is expecting to end the current 2023-24 school year with a $14.1 million deficit. This comes just a month after EPISD Superintendent Diana Sayavedra announced the district would begin looking into closing or consolidating schools in response to declining enrollment and falling birth rates. Still, district leaders said they will be able to balance the budget thanks to a cost-savings plan, which includes eliminating vacant administrative positions, selling unused properties and using the district’s estimated $159 million in reserves. Though EPISD may have the funds to cover the budget shortfalls for now, the district’s chief financial officer, Martha Aguirre, told El Paso Matters it may not be able to keep up if the district doesn’t take action. “If we don’t have measures in place to monitor the budget, and really prioritize and evaluate all the expenditures, we could end up in a dire situation,” Aguirre said. “It’s not sustainable year-over-year if we don’t continue to implement systems to recoup funds.” Now the district is looking to approve a budget at the end of June that may not include pay raises for teachers or staff. El Paso Independent School District Superintendent Diana Sayavedra discusses the “Destination District Redesign” plan at Burges High School on May 1. EPISD is seeking community input as it considers “sunsetting” some of its campuses in response to El Paso’s declining population. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters) “If we were able to come forth with any compensation increase, I’m going to share with you that it would not be at a 2.4% increase, it would be more like a 0.5 or 1% increase, if anything,” Sayavedra told the EPISD school board during a June 4 meeting. This comes as school districts all over Texas, including the Ysleta, Socorro and Canutillo independent school districts, face similar, and in some cases, more extreme revenue shortfalls caused in part by stagnant state funding for public education, which has not been raised since 2019. Though lawmakers attempted to increase the allotment schools receive for each student enrolled during the 2023 legislative session, these efforts failed after Gov. Greg Abbott tied the initiative to a controversial voucher program that would have allowed parents to pay for private school using state funds. In response to the June meeting, El Paso American Federation of Teachers President Ross Moore sent an email to Sayavedra and the board urging them to give employees two $2,000 stipends during the 2024-25 school year using the district’s reserves. “I know and understand the difficult financial situation EPISD and other districts statewide are in are direct results of the actions of the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the commissioner of education – not you or administration,” the email stated. “I close by asking that you draw from unassigned fund balance and invest in your most valuable asset, the employees who have kept this district going.” How did EPISD end up with a budget deficit? Aguirre said the district has had a decline in revenue since 2014 and has had to make cutbacks over the years to keep up with costs. The district’s enrollment dropped by roughly 20% during the same time frame, according to data from the Texas Education Agency. “As a district, we have been losing anywhere between 800 to 1,000 students year over year. When we look at enrollment in our school districts across Texas, they’re all experiencing the same challenges,” Aguirre said. State funds for public schools are calculated using a formula that depends on enrollment and average daily attendance, meaning the fewer students a district has, the less funds it gets from the state. Now the district is projecting that it will end the current fiscal year with $550.1 million in revenue and $564.2 in expenses, leaving the district with a $14.1 million deficit. Aguirre said this was caused by low average daily attendance and changes to the state’s homestead exemptions. Texas’ homestead exemption, which was increased from $40,000 to $100,000 after voters approved Proposition 4 last November, reduced the amount homeowners could be taxed to pay for public schools. “When we saw how much, we did not get dollar to dollar from the local property compared to the state (contribution),” Aguirre said. She said the district made property sales that would cover the cost of the $14.1 million deficit, which are expected to be presented to the board and approved in November. The El Paso ISD Board of Trustees and Superintendent listen to public comments from supporters of Nicole Schuster, a third-grade teacher who was accused on inappropriately helping students on their STAAR tests, May 21, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters) EPISD started the 2023-24 year with $159.3 million in reserves, or enough to keep the district running for 88 days. Now, the district is projecting it will have $145.2 million in reserves, or enough for 80 days, by the end of June. While the state does not require districts to have a certain number of days in their reserves, they need to have enough to keep running for at least 75 days to get an A in the Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas. These budgets do not include a cost-savings plan that would reduce the district’s expenses by $5.5 million for the 2023-24 school year and $12.4 million for the 2024-25 school year. The savings depend on the district’s ability to complete everything in the plan, which includes a hiring freeze and restructuring of administrative positions, property sales and reclassifying salaries. “We are monitoring all the department-level vacancies and then, based on that, we determine which ones we will hold so that we can generate the savings that we propose in that amount. Being a large organization you know that just the vacancies and the continuous attrition helps generate savings,” Aguirre told El Paso Matters. District staff said these cost savings would keep the district’s reserves at 80 days by the end of the 2024-25 school year. Still, with no additional state funding or long-term budget cuts, it could expect an even higher deficit in the coming years. The district projections presented during the June meeting show it could end up with a $15.9 million deficit during the 2025-26 school year and a $25 million deficit for the 2026-27 school year. During the June 4 meeting, the district’s administration also recommended spending an additional $6.5 million on new initiatives such as expanding the gifted and talented program and a capital replacement plan, which would be used to pay for transportation and maintenance equipment. If approved by the board, these additional expenses would raise the district’s estimated deficit for the 2024-25 school year to about $18.6 million. It would also increase the projected deficit to $23.1 million for the 2025-’26 school year and $32.2 million for the 2026-’27 school year. [END] --- [1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2024/06/14/episd-budget-deficit-enrollment-school-closures/ Published and (C) by El Paso Matters.org Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/elpasomatters/