Numbers Tough To Nail Down For Budget Workshops

Setting a school district’s budget each year can be a tough puzzle. It may be even more of a challenge for administrators this year.

Changes in state-level school financing and the introduction of federal economic stimulus package funds could help school budgets, though not as much as first hoped.

Fruitvale ISD Business Manager Susan McCann is getting ready for the first budget workshop of the summer on Monday. She said she is working with state financing figures that could change quickly.

"During a legislative year, it is extremely frustrating, some years more than others," she said about the preparation work. "We are going to go with what we know for sure right now."

McCann and others in her position use formula templates provided by the Texas Education Agency to determine what the district will receive in state funding for the upcoming school year. The templates incorporate data such as average daily attendance and special education full-time equivalents.

This year, House Bill 3646 takes effect after recently being signed by Gov. Rick Perry. The new school finance package provides additional weighted average daily attendance (WADA) funds for schools, although a big portion of it must go to teacher pay raises.

McCann said HB 3646 guarantees a minimum of an additional $100 WADA. Based on the most recent information, she said, Fruitvale ISD will get $201 WADA, which equates to an additional $130,000.

While that might sound good, the reality is that Fruitvale and many other school districts in the state are still hurting from the effects of the previous plan, House Bill 1.

McCann said a recently published article on school financing woes in Texas noted that 40 percent of school districts statewide are in deficit budget situations because of HB 1.

"For Fruitvale, we will be looking at an extremely tight budget," said McCann. "House Bill 1 allowed nothing for inflation and the last couple of years we have been in such a tight position that there was just no extra (revenue) to provide any kind of a safety net."

This year, there is another wildcard factor to consider in the federal economic stimulus package.

Edgewood ISD Superintendent Jack Shellnut is hopeful the Texas plan will be approved for stimulus package funding, but he said he has some doubt.

"The problem is instead of using the $10 billion surplus, that "rainy day" fund, the state has kept that and stuck in $3.2 billion of federal dollars going into the state budget," he said.

Teacher pay raises could hinge on that federal approval, Shellnut added.

"Who really knows what will happen with this thing," he said. "But if the federal stimulus money is not available, those teacher pay raises are not going to be there.

"And here you are trying to do a budget for the upcoming school year, and it will probably be August until the federal government rules on (acceptance of) the state’s plan," Shellnut said.

School budget makers have other problems to tackle with some special funds. For instance, McCann said Fruitvale ISD has $61,000 in federal money forthcoming, but that money can only be used for new positions or equipment.

"It cannot be used to supplant anything in your budget, but has to be used to supplement it," she said. "We are adding a math teacher, a teacher’s aide and some new technology equipment."

This time last year, skyrocketing gasoline prices were a major headache for school administrators. Most increased transportation budgets as much as possible out of fear of prices going even higher.

Instead, the bottom dropped out of the oil market in late 2008 and gasoline and diesel fuel prices went with it.

"We were in limbo for a while. You just have to guess at it and do the best you can," Shellnut said, noting the rise of gas prices through the first half of this calendar year.

"I didn’t put as much in transportation this year…I don’t know if we are going to need it all. It’s hard to tell what the market will do from here," he added.