HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – Cy-Fair ISD’s chief financial officer announced they’re preparing to see a $38 million deficit for the upcoming school year. Karen Smith, during a board meeting, said the reason for the loss is due to end of the ‘Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund’ (ESSER) a COVID-era federal dollars and lack of additional state funding.
“We are in a deficit budget. We are going to use our ESSR money and vacancy factor in order to help get us closer to balancing this time. But that ESSR money is not going to be here next here,” said Superintendent Douglas Killian.
During the February 12th meeting, Killian asked Smith what the worst-case scenario looks like.
“$138 million,” Smith said. “I would say if you take into account the unfilled positions.”
“I think it’s a bit tragic,” said Paige Barrick who’s six-year-old attends Gleason Elementary School. “That’s one of the reasons that drove us here. Is having the school and the community be what it is. It’s been great.”
Barrick moved to the neighborhood recently after living in the Heights for 12 years.
She said she’s disappointed the district hasn’t shared more about the financial restraints for the upcoming school year.
“I think because we have no transparency yet on what’s going to happen these are just rumblings,” she said.
The mother said hearing from district leaders could reduce the rumor mills and calm nerves, “just so we don’t think the worst and then prepare and then something else happens.”
In a statement to KPRC 2, the district spokesperson said they haven’t received an increase funding from state leaders since 2019.
“Without additional funding from the state, only budget cuts and revenue-generating ideas will balance the budget,” the spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, we find ourselves in this challenging budget situation.”
The chief financial officer said they are looking into how to balance the budget.
“We’ve been looking at various revenue options that we can consider to bring in additional revenue, looking at cost efficiencies,” Smith said. “That’s pretty hard when you’re 90 percent payroll. It’s not as easy as you’d like it to be.”
When parent, Valerie Hernandez, heard this – she told KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun she immediately thought of her kid’s teachers and the districts staff.
“They might not want to stick around if there’s budget cuts. If they’re not getting the resource, they need in the classrooms and it’s also affecting parents because we’re providing more for the classrooms out of our pockets so that the teachers are not providing out of their pocket.”
CY-FAIR ISD BUDGET DEFICIT STATEMENT:
“CFISD has not received an increase in funding since 2019 and has used ESSER (federal) funding for the past few years to balance the budget. This school year, we will expend the last of the three years of ESSER funding and again use a combination of those federal relief funds and unfilled positions to end this budget year balanced and in a surplus. Without additional funding from the state, only budget cuts and revenue-generating ideas will balance the budget. CFISD is a very efficiently staffed district with economies of scale. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in this challenging budget situation; however, we are steadfastly committed to our community to ensure that CFISD remains a destination district and that budget cuts do not negatively affect staff or the quality of education provided to our students.” -- CFISD spokesperson