Superintendent explains district budget deficit, proposed cuts

Kate Hayes | Asst. Editor

Texas lawmakers entered the 2023 legislative session with a record budget surplus of $32.7 billion available to use at their discretion. State Comptroller Glenn Hegar further announced on Monday, Jan. 9 that over the next two years, the state would collect $188.2 billion in revenue to invest in state programs. But even with a historic amount of funds in the state treasury, many school districts like PfISD currently sit at a budgetary deficit, and from the view of superintendent Dr. Douglas Killian, what’s saving the state money is exactly what’s costing the district.

“When property values go up, the amount the state sends schools goes down,” Killian said. “Plus, attendance at schools are down, so the state sends schools less budgeted funds. Lower attendance means we not only lose state aid, but our recapture payment goes up too.”

In recent months, PfISD has been gathering data on a multitude of proposed budget cuts due to consistently decreasing funding and an estimated $20 million owed in recapture. Recapture, otherwise known as Robin Hood, is a process by which wealthy school districts send funds to the state to be redistributed to poorer school districts.

“[Recapture] was a great thing,” Killian said. “Few districts were subject to recapture, because the district had to be super property wealthy. The original system even allowed a wealthy district to send the money directly to a poorer one through mutual agreement.”

Due to the city of Pflugerville’s rising property values, PfISD is considered a property wealthy district, and subject to recapture. But Killian says this process has changed.

“You can’t send money directly to a poor district,” Killian said. “More and more districts are considered property wealthy because the wealth level has not increased at the rate of inflation and property value growth. Plus, the state collects the money and it’s just part of the Foundation School Program. It’s not “extra” for the poorest districts. It’s now a revenue source for the state to make their basic Foundation payment to all schools.”

PfISD has been forced to make budget cuts in accordance with funding for the past two years, in part due to recapture escalating to record collection levels. However, only now will the next round of proposed cuts directly affect school programs.

“We have been cutting at the district level to avoid impacting classrooms, programs and students,” Killian said. “So, there is not much left to avoid class impacts. When you have cut the operations budget 5% and asked for an additional 5% cut this year and are asking for 5% again, there is really nothing left.”

Some of the potential cuts would reduce travel budgets, consolidate elementary bilingual programs on fewer campuses, and eliminate a second planning period for all middle school and elective high school teachers, among others.

“We asked for suggestions and lists of possibilities [for cuts] and are down to these,” Killian said. “Some are efficiency, some sustainability; many are things we don’t want to cut, but we are down to bad choices and worse choices.”

To better fund schools, Killian says the state must take into account rising inflation rates.

“A raise in the basic allotment in the state’s funding formula is the most important thing,” Killian said. “We are about $900 lower than we were in 2019 if inflation is taken into account. That alone would solve our funding issues.”

Additionally, Killian says PfISD’s own students can help increase funding — if they’re coming to school.

“Missing school matters and matters even more to a school subject to recapture,” Killian said. “It has consequences academically, but it also has financial consequences, and ultimately will have consequences for the staff that can afford to stay in the district and the programs we can afford to offer.”