AISD: Cash for the Future

AISD: More bites from the apple this year, and the next, and the next

$818 million: That's how much Austin ISD plans to spend in the 2009-10 academic year out of its general revenue funds.

Here's the downside: They only expect to have $803 million in revenue, so that means a $15 million dip into the undesignated reserves.

The Board of Trustees agreed that figure last night, but pledged to put the district on course for a balanced budget. New Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said she'd like to achieve that next year, which means some pretty serious budget cuts somewhere.

That discussion revealed some serious fractures in the board last night. The current prediction is for a $15 million to $25 million deficit spend in 2010-11 if the district keeps its current expenditure and revenue predictions (and if property taxes plummet, that revenue could go well down). How to get there, and what expenditures can be targeted, caused contention.

The argument boiled over about two issues: One, administrator pay, and two, whether any money should come out of campus budgets.

The board split over the administrators: Vice-President Vince Torres and Trustee Sam Guzman opposed giving them a pay raise and just wanted the cash to go to the district's lowest-paid classified staff. Board President Mark Williams and trustees Karen Dulaney Smith and Lori Moya argued that administrators were just as much a part of the AISD community as anyone else: If they were going to rubber stamp the state-mandated $950 teacher pay raise and approve 3% for classified staff, cutting out admin staff (not all of whom are paid that well or are at central office) was just unfair.

Ultimately, all three raises passed, but it wasn't a clean vote. Classifieds and admin were split into two votes, then Smith, Williams and Moya voted against the classified raise (actually, not against the raise, but against the process of splitting the raises). They reconsidered the vote, passing it 9-0 on the second attempt, but Torres and Guzman abstained from the admin raise, leaving it unanimous at 7-0.

Torres clashed more vocally with Carstarphen over the proposal to take $500,000 out of campus budgets, relating to roll-over expenditures. There was a tense moment about whether Carstarphen had promised to never touch campus budgets or not (she is loathe to make that promise, because the budget could require some brutal cuts next year), and instead the board left that cash out of the budget. There was a proviso: That Carstarphen somehow find the money for the projects and employees it would pay for elsewhere.

After the five-hour marathon session, Board President Mark Williams tried to be diplomatic. "Well, that's just democracy in action," he said.