TOUGH TALK: HEALING BEGINS WITH A CONVERSATION ON MENTAL HEALTH
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MARCH 2016 I Vol. 36, No. 3 parkcitiespeople.com @pcpeople
District Dollars
LIVING WELL Spinners find inner Zyn at new cycling studio 26
IN AFTERMATH OF BOND ELECTION, GIFTS REMAIN IMPORTANT TO BUILDING HPISD’S BUDGET
SPORTS I M A N I LY T L E
and the district endowment, the Tartan Fund, both help to supplement these costs specifically. “That’s the heart of the whole thing. The kids of course are the most important, but without teachers you don’t have a school,” she said. “Very few of our teachers can afford to live in the community, so they drive through all these communities that pay equally or higher and why would you do that? So we have to do our best to at least maintain where we are.” To make sure the rate they do pay is on par regionally, every summer the HPISD personnel department conducts a study to compare what other districts say they’re paying, Turner said.
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ADDING IT UP 2015
W
hile the community was debating Highland Park ISD's largest bond package last fall, life went on as normal inside classrooms. Teachers were teaching, students were learning, and the HP Education Foundation, PTAs, Sports Club, and other groups were out trying to fundraise to keep it all going. And with an estimated $83.8 million expected to be recaptured by the state this fiscal year, there’s a lot these groups are trying to make up. The district’s total operating budget for 2014-15 was $156.5 million, but the general fund was only $135.3 million. Ac-
cording to assistant superintendent for business services Tim Turner, that's the fund to pay attention to as it's what pays salaries and what the state recaptures on average $70.5 million from each year. “Our operating costs are closer to $50 million after we take recapture out of the taxes we collect,” Tim Turner said. “It impacts us tremendously. We’ve paid over a billion dollars since it [recapture] started in the 90s.” Every year the district must grapple with how to pay teachers competitively from the general fund with around $35 million allotted for instruction costs, and keep programs up to standards. According to the executive director of HPEF Jan Peterson, the annual campaign, Mad for Plaid,
2014
People Newspapers
2013
By Elizabeth Ygartua
$156,464,505
Scots lacrosse team looks to repeat run at state tourney 12
$80,937,030 $6,692,662 $145,842,479 $76,895,827 $7,288,892 $143,546,904 $75,033,404
COMMUNITY
$5,738,252
Podcast pals: UP friends share local stories 36
total Expenditures total recapture total gifts SOURCE: HPISD COMPREHENSIVE ANNUAL FINANCIAL REPORTS
BUSINESS
FOCUS ON PHILANTHROPY
NorthPark restaurant as rugged as presidential namesake 20
Folks get by with a little help from friends at East Dallas refuge 34
SCHOOLS
What costs more? Private school or a college education?
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