Amid Budget Crisis, Austin ISD Leaders Push Vaguely to “Rethink How We Work”
Sense of doom as no one solution will be enough
By Brant Bingamon, Fri., June 14, 2024
A troubling new reality has descended on Austin ISD. At school board meetings over the last six weeks, Superintendent Matias Segura has warned that the 2024-25 budget deficit – currently projected to be at least $78 million, even after $30 million of cuts to central office operations – can’t be fixed through more budget cuts. The superintendent has said the district needs a ground-up reassessment of its “workflows,” and that it needs to “work differently.”
Segura reiterated the warning at the board’s June 6 meeting. “I think it’s really important to talk about where we are,” he said. “We have just taken $30 million in cuts and there’s still a way to go. And I have said this a couple of different times: We’re not going to be able to cut our way out of this. We have to rethink how we work.”
What exactly the super meant by “rethink how we work” was left vague – perhaps purposely.
Segura and many of the trustees remain cautiously optimistic that Austinites will vote to increase property taxes at an election in the fall in order to provide more funding for schools. The proposed vote, known as a voter-approval tax rate election, or VATRE, could bring an extra $41 million a year to the district. The board will decide whether to ask for the VATRE at its next meeting on June 20. If it gives its approval, the proposition will appear on the ballot in November.
But as with the budget cuts, the additional money from the VATRE would only ease the current crisis, not solve it. Board President Arati Singh called attention to this by highlighting the district’s deficit projections for the 2025-26 school year. With a VATRE, that year’s deficit is projected to be $51 million. Without it, it’s projected to be $67 million.
“It’s, unfortunately, not that different,” Singh said. “So I think in either scenario we’re gonna have to do things very, very differently. And I do think that we’re gonna have to start that work in either case, whether or not we pass a VATRE. Even with a VATRE we’re still only good for a year.”
Regardless of these and other doubts, the district and its employees continue to push for a VATRE. During the public comment portion of Thursday’s meeting, members of Education Austin, the union that represents AISD’s teachers and staff, voiced strong support for the proposal. That’s perhaps in part because the district and union have an agreement to use $17 million of the revenue a VATRE would generate to provide a modest raise in salary – what both groups are calling a market rate adjustment – for certain AISD employees. Brandi Hosack, the head of the district’s teacher recruitment team, told the trustees the adjustment would help keep district salaries competitive with those of other school districts in the area, allowing AISD to retain teachers, especially those with seven to 20 years of experience.
June 20 is the last school board meeting before summer break, so the trustees will vote not only on the VATRE but also the 2024-25 budget. Segura stressed that the district will continue studying the budget through the summer for ways to save and generate money. These include increasing class sizes, eliminating planning breaks for teachers, increasing student attendance, and generating revenue from the district’s real estate holdings.
“What I don’t want to do is to not go through that work prior to asking our voters, if the board supports it, for the passage of a VATRE,” Segura said. “We need to be able to communicate that we have done everything possible to stabilize the budget, get back to a balanced budget, and reduce our exposure when the state Legislature reconvenes in the spring of 2025. And that means that between July and October there is difficult work to be done in AISD.”
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