Ector County ISD’s budget was top of mind for Superintendent Scott Muri during his media call Wednesday.
Muri also covered recognition of five teachers who earned National Board of Professional Teaching Standards certification, the board of trustees appointment of 10 people to serve as a bond oversight committee, extension of a contract with the YMCA to educate 3 year old students and bringing Ector College Prep middle school back into the district fold.
Every year in December Muri and trustees discuss budget priorities, in this case for the 2024-25 school year.
They usually talk about the types of investments they would like to see the district continue to make, or maybe new investments in the organization.
“This year’s conversation was a little bit different, however,” Muri said. “We, as many of our community members know, adopted a deficit budget this year with full anticipation and expectation that the state would provide the funding to backfill the decisions that we made.”
“Unfortunately that hasn’t happened. Our state leaders have been unable to come to an agreement in regard to funding public education in Texas.”
Funds have been set aside in Austin, but have not been released to districts. Locally that means ECISD will need to make some “very difficult decisions” over the next several months. With no additional funding from the state for public education the budget will be very tight next year, the board recap said. As things look now, the revenue stream looks to be the same as this year — about $334 million.
“This is not because of anything the board of trustees have done wrong. This is not because of misspending. This is purely because our elected officials at the state are unable to come to an agreement and the billions of dollars that are currently waiting to be released into public education to support the 5.5 million children in the state of Texas, those funds right now are stuck in the city of Austin,” Muri said. “Until those funds are released, unfortunately, we’re going to have to create not only another deficit budget but making some pretty significant cuts unless that money is released to us.”
He added that they understand there’s hard work ahead as they make “some pretty significant budget cuts for the first time in many, many years.”
Muri said they are hopeful that state leaders will be able to come to some type of agreement to release the funds not only to ECISD but districts across Texas.
The district has to adopt a budget by the end of June.
“We’ll be traveling parallel tracks working with our state to make sure those funds are released, but also being forced to make some pretty difficult decisions locally. … All of that has to be done by the end of June,” Muri said.
The legislature has had four special sessions and have been unable to come to an agreement on public school funding.
“There was talk several weeks ago about a fifth special session, but I haven’t heard anything over the past several weeks. It would probably require a special session again in order for funding to be released, but right now I don’t have any word on another special session,” Muri said.
The next regular legislative session wouldn’t occur until 2025.
“Unfortunately, we would be halfway through next school year. We would have already made significant cuts by that point and then actually when they would begin we would begin looking at the budget cycle for ’25-26 …,” Muri said.
“The harm that would come to our children and families would be significant. We can’t wait until the next session, so a special session or some other mechanism at this point is what’s going to be required so those dollars can be released to us.”
Muri said ECISD can pursue grants and other opportunities, but it would take a lot of grant writing to fill the gap.
“We’re not talking about $1 or $2 million. We’re talking about a gap of over $20 million that exists. Our state needs to release the money so we can do the work we have to do with kids,” Muri said. “That’s the best thing to happen.”
Meanwhile, he said the district will be looking at cuts in every single area because cutting over $20 million is pretty significant.
Muri said he had an idea the district might be in this position, but didn’t expect it.
“In fact, when we adopted our deficit budget last year we did it with the expectation that our state leaders would reach some level of agreement and that the money would have already come to us. In fact, we gave our staff members a raise based upon the decisions that would be made at the state level. We invested in our students with the anticipation that the state would be making wise choices, but that hasn’t panned out. I’m a bit surprised, but mostly disappointed at this point that it hasn’t happened. It may turn to anger at some point because I see already how this is going to affect our students and they have the potential to be the innocent victims in an adult issue.”
“I encourage our state leaders to come to compromise so that our students are not affected,” Muri said.
If they can’t, it would be incredibly disappointing because “it would be pure and simple the fault of the adults that cannot figure out how to come to some kind of agreement,” he added.
Muri said they could reach out to the philanthropic community, but he doesn’t see why they should when the money exists at the state level.
“I really hate to ask anyone for money when I know that’s sitting in the state of Texas, but yes if it gets to (that) point we can reach out to our philanthropic community and seek their assistance as we navigate this unfortunate process,” he said.
At the same time the state funding situation is going on, federal ESSER funds that were distributed during COVID-19 are going away. The funds were used to help students recover academically, socially and emotionally from the pandemic.
“We’ve been making a lot of investments with those dollars providing everything from tutoring to our students to extra social workers to attendance clerks to curricular materials … A lot of different investments we’ve been able to make because of those dollars. All of that comes to an end this summer. They’ll be expended,” Muri said.
The board consensus was to keep any cuts as far away from students as they possibly can.
“We do know, however, that everything we do is about the students that we serve. But what can we do so that they feel as little impact as possible? That will be the goal. At this point, we don’t have specific items, but we will be looking at ways that we can make cuts that have as little affect on students as we can,” he added.
If they cut student programming like arts and athletics that directly affects students.
“We have students that they’re connection to school is the art class that they have. It is the music class that they have. It is the athletic team in which they engage. Those are the incentives that many of our kids have,” Muri said.
“We also know that kids that engage in fine and performing arts, in career and technical education in athletics those students graduate at a higher level. Those students outperform their peers academically. Those are the types of activities that we actually, rather than cut, those are the things we need to continue to add to as there’s significant evidence in our own district that they make a positive effect upon our students.”
Muri said he hasn’t faced this situation since he was in the Charlotte, N.C., district in 2011. They had to make some very difficult cuts then because of the national financial crisis.
“The really sad thing about this is Texas is not in a financial crisis. In fact, we are flush with cash at the state level. There are billions of dollars that have been set aside for public education. This isn’t a matter of we don’t have the money at the state. It’s that we don’t have the money locally because it’s sitting at the state level. I think that’s the most frustrating part to me as a superintendent and to our trustees is we know the money is there. It just hasn’t made it here. We’re going to have to spend an inordinate amount of our time, energy and effort looking at cuts that ultimately we may not even have to make because at some point the legislature may decide to send the money to us,” Muri said.
On a separate topic, Muri said five teachers achieved certification through the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards. They were recognized at the Dec. 12 board meeting.
The national board began certifying teachers in 1994.
“It’s an opportunity that allows a teacher to … go from good to great. Research says that National Board certified teachers outperform their peers across the country. That’s why this certification is truly considered the gold standard,” Muri said.
The board also appointed 10 members to make up a bond oversight committee. The committee is meant to ensure that the promises made during the bond campaign will be kept.
The district is waiting to hear whether they have accepted the post. The committee will start meeting in January.
They will meet four times each year and then once a year present to the board of trustees their observations.
“Their primary responsibility is to ensure the projects that were promised in the bond package are indeed the body of work that we do over the next five years,” Muri said.
“Not only will they pay attention to projects, but they’ll also pay attention to the progress side. They’ll ensure that we are maintaining our projects within the proposed budget and that we are spending our money over the next five years appropriately as it relates to the various bond items.”
Muri also said the board approved extending the district’s contract with the YMCA for three years.
The Y educates both 3 and 4 year old students because ECISD doesn’t have the capacity to do it.
“We simply do not have the space to do that. The YMCA does have the space, and so we partnered with them about two and a half years ago. Since that time, they’ve been educating our 3-year-olds in their pre-K program.
It’s been a very healthy partnership and our board of trustees extended the contract with them for another three years,” Muri said.
In addition the board will be sending a letter to Third Future charter school network to let them know ECISD appreciates the work that they’ve done over the last three years turning Ector College Prep middle school around.
“We will be taking that school back and it will become a full-fledged Ector County ISD middle school once again,” Muri said.
The district will close for winter break Dec. 19. Teachers and staff will return Jan. 3 and students come back Jan. 4.
