Austin ISD officials and a community budget committee have spent the last few months working on a plan to eliminate a $92 million budget deficit over the next few years, exploring how to reduce spending, while minimizing any direct impact to the classroom.
Superintendent Matias Segura underscored that goal during a school board meeting Thursday.
“We are committed to going through a process that aligns with our values [and] doing so in a way that protects the educational environment in our schools,” he said.
"We are committed to going through a process that aligns with our values [and] doing so in a way that protects the educational environment in our schools."Superintendent Matias Segura
Before we get into the specifics of the proposal though, you might be thinking: “Didn’t voters just approve a tax rate increase to help out the district?"
Yes, yes they did. And that will generate $41 million in new revenue for AISD. The district plans to use nearly half of that funding to chip away at the deficit, but it was never going to be enough to bridge the entire funding gap.
With that in mind, Austin ISD has come up with an array of strategies to reduce the deficit by $26 million during the current school year and another $66 million over the next two.
Austin ISD's proposal currently sidesteps some of the thornier cuts other school districts in Texas are making — things like closing schools and cutting librarian positions. Austin ISD has said cutting librarian, counselor and school nurse positions is off the table at least for the next year.
Segura also noted closing schools is at the very bottom of the list for Austin ISD, which went through a painful process of closing four schools to save money after the 2019-2020 school year.
“That’s the last thing that we’re going to be evaluating,” he said.
So, what strategies is Central Texas’ largest school district considering to eliminate the deficit? Here are five ways Austin ISD may try to cut spending or raise revenue to achieve a balanced budget in the next few years.
Reduce the number of portable classrooms
Superintendent Segura said Austin ISD has more than 400 portable classrooms on its campuses. And these aren’t portables it rents during a construction project; they’re ones the district owns. Maintaining these structures is expensive, he added, because they’re inefficient.
“They’re very porous so they’re exposed to the elements on all sides – top, bottom and all the walls,” he said. “They are very, very costly from an operations and maintenance perspective.”
Segura said the district is operating between 780,000 and 800,000 square feet worth of portable classrooms, which is equivalent to about one and a half Bowie or Akins high schools.
He said the district needs to start phasing out portables because they will only get more expensive to maintain as they age.
Eliminate vacant positions and reorganize departments
Austin ISD has already eliminated 55 vacant transportation jobs, which includes driver, monitor and mechanic positions. The district said those cuts will not impact transportation services for students.
“We’ve been creating greater route efficiency each year while continuing to support campus programming and student needs,” Austin ISD said in an email.
The district is also looking at reorganizing a handful of departments in its central administrative office.
Make master scheduling more efficient
Master scheduling is basically the process of determining things like which classes are available and when, where teachers are assigned and even the classroom where a course will be taught. Austin ISD administrators anticipate improving this process could result in millions in savings.
“How can we continually create a master schedule that will help us make sure that we’re equitable across our schools, but that we also don’t have lots of classrooms with a small amount of children in them,” interim Chief Financial Officer Katrina Montgomery told the school board Thursday.
The district has said an audit found about 29% of the 5,500 core instruction teachers — meaning they teach subjects like math and reading — have fewer than 15 students.
Segura said there's an art and science to building out master schedules that meet the needs of students. Campuses across the district are using different strategies to develop their schedules, he said, and there’s a downside to that, too.
He described one campus that did not adjust its master schedule once the school year started even though it had fewer students than expected.
“So, that school continued to run very inefficiently,” he said.
AISD board secretary Lynn Boswell urged the district to avoid maximizing efficiency at the expense of giving students the chance to take more specialized courses that might have smaller class sizes, like career and technical education and high-level math courses.
Sell naming rights to facilities
Austin ISD is considering selling naming rights to facilities, such as House Park and Burger Stadium.
Other Texas school districts from Lubbock to Katy have sold naming rights to football stadiums to raise revenue. In 2016, Lubbock-Cooper ISD made a $3 million deal with First United Bank that provided the district with $500,000 up front and an additional $250,000 annually for 10 years.
Raji Srinivasan, a marketing professor at UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business, said getting naming rights to school facilities can be appealing to companies.
“It’s a good way to get in front of students. If it’s a stadium or a library, whatever it is … students are there,” she said.
Srinivasan said another benefit of buying naming rights for school facilities is that it demonstrates a company’s support for public education.
“There are a lot of positive co-branding benefits for the companies … especially if they’re Texas based,” she said.
But Srinivasan said any revenue raised this way will likely be just a “bandaid” when it comes to the district’s $92 million deficit.
“It’s not really going to address the problem, but it takes a step in that direction,” she said.
Monetize district properties
The district is planning to launch a hybrid work policy next year for Central Office staff, so it could make money by renting out space.
It’s also looking at leasing or selling other properties. One of those properties is the former Rosedale School. School board members are also scheduled to vote next Thursday on whether to make the former Brooke Elementary School available to be leased or sold.
What else?
A lot of other options remain on the table, including reducing the number of bus routes that transport students to magnet programs.
The district is also working on increasing the attendance rate, since Texas largely funds districts on how often kids show up to school. District officials have said just a 1% increase would bring in an additional $4.5 million in funding.
The public can give feedback on these proposed strategies at a virtual meeting Saturday at 11 a.m. People can also weigh in on the district’s financial future by voting in Saturday’s runoff race for a seat on the Austin ISD school board. The board’s main responsibility is approving the district’s budget.
