Arlington ISD’s board of trustees approved the 2024-2025 budget with a $25.5 million deficit earlier this week.
The district joined a number of others in North Texas to pass an unbalanced budget after grappling with ways to reduce costs amid expiring emergency federal taxpayer funds and declining student enrollment.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Arlington ISD made hundreds of staffing cuts earlier this year as a cost-saving measure. Nevertheless, its deficit remains substantial, with the district projecting $675.8 million in expenditures, according to the Fort Worth Report.
This is considerably higher than last year’s expenditures, which totaled roughly $576.3 million, thanks in large part to a rise in salary and benefits costs of almost $75 million at taxpayers’ expense.
Arlington ISD, like other districts in the region, such as Fort Worth ISD and Dallas ISD, decided to increase salaries by 4% to remain competitive despite throwing their budgets for the upcoming school year off-kilter. A starting teacher at Arlington ISD will now earn $64,600 a year, which is higher than the salaries of $63,000 offered at Fort Worth ISD and $62,000 at Dallas ISD.
The district’s estimated $25.5 million deficit will be partially covered by its remaining reserves of $253 million. This fund balance is over twice the minimum amount AISD wants to keep in reserves — $112.7 million, or 16.67% of the general fund operating expenditures, per the Fort Worth Report.
“The AISD Board of Trustees approved a budget with a 4% raise for teachers despite a $25 million deficit. This will change due to access from the fund balance in savings. Dr. Smith outlined recommendations approved by the board that will better manage future budgeting. Some recommendations include zero-base budgeting, including potential budget cuts,” Arlington ISD resident Kathi Arocha told The Dallas Express about the budget.
While no increase to the tax rate is expected, Arlington ISD Superintendent Matt Smith explained during the latest board meeting on Tuesday that “extremely tough conversations” should be expected to reduce costs.
“The [Texas] Legislature has failed to take action over the last session, so this year is going to be a challenging year for us when we talk budget coming up,” he said, according to the Fort Worth Report.
The persistence of a basic allotment of $6,160 per student from the state since 2019 and Gov. Greg Abbott’s push for school choice have been blamed for public school districts’ financial challenges. However, some have suggested that mismanagement of taxpayer money and poor student outcomes are the real problems.
Arlington ISD has lagged considerably in its academic results, with the Texas Education Agency’s latest accountability report for the district showing that only 40% of students scored at grade level on their STAAR exams during the 2021-2022 school year scored at grade level on their STAAR exams. This is right about on par with the 41% logged by students at Dallas ISD, another troubled district, but short of the statewide average of 48%.