Prioritizing School Funding

Keller ISD recently announced huge cuts to teachers, librarians, counselors, coaches, fine arts, office staff, and more due to a projected $27 million budget deficit. We’re even shutting down an entire campus. Why did this happen? What could we have done better? And how do we prevent more cuts in the future?

Texas public education finance policy is hard for anyone to understand. State rules prevent most schools from bringing in enough money to provide an excellent education to all students. Districts across the state, including KISD are feeling the pinch. Decreasing enrollment, the COVID crisis, and rising inflation only add to our problems. 

I believe KISD needed to make some budget cuts but I don’t think they needed to be this bad. I also believe we should have been preparing for the worst years ago, rather than hoping our state leaders would come to our rescue. And the board should have been more frank with the community about how a $27 million deficit would result in losing teachers, increasing class sizes, and reducing educational opportunities for students. There was no public discussion by the board or any committee about which staffing positions would be cut and why.

Things look pretty bad right now but it’s not hopeless. We can sell some district-owned property to refill our savings account. We could pay for some things like computers and necessary facility repairs with bond money instead of using our general operating fund (the fund we use to pay teacher salaries), and as we pay off debts we may be able to shift some of those dollars toward hiring back teachers.

Meanwhile, we can keep demanding change in Austin. As a start we want a minimum of $1000 added to the basic allotment (dollars per student), funding based on enrollment and not attendance, an increase in the allotment for Special Ed students, an end to recapture, and no public education dollars given to vouchers.

Keller ISD needs leaders who are transparent with the community about our financial state, will actively involve our educators and parents in financial decision-making, and are willing to make the tough decisions necessary to save our schools.