Brittany Kelley
KYLE — The Hays CISD Board of Trustees unanimously approved the general fund, debt service fund and food service fund budgets for fiscal year 2025-26 at its June 24 meeting.
According to Alex Salazar, director of finance, not much has changed since the budget workshop held June 4.
Currently, he stated that the fund balance is at $31,460,000, but following a reclassification in the FY 2024-25 budget, the district is prepared to have a deficit of $11.4 million, which will give Hays CISD an estimated fund balance going into next year of $20 million.
The total proposed budget is $377,502,115, which is made up of the general fund at $276,789,503, food service at $14,019,951 and $95,691,661 in debt service, while the total expenditures is at $377,502,115.
The expenditures are divided as follows:
• Payroll: 64.49%
• Debt Service: 25.35%
• Contracted Services: 5.39%
• Supplies and Materials: 3.19%
• Other Operating Costs: 1.53%
• Capital Outlay: 0.05%
Because the budget will be balanced, there will be no effect to the fund balance, said Salazar. The district is expected to end next year with the same $20 million fund balance.
Local funding makes up 62.12%, amounting to $230,795,486, including $220,126,197 from property taxes. Additionally, there is $129,325,629 from state sources and $11,381,000 from federal sources.
“I’m just excited we were able to go back and reclass, get things coded where they were supposed to be coded and cleaned up and so, we were able total to — based on my calculations — reduce probably, with the cuts where we started through nutrition and vacancies and then, just different allocations, my rough calculations, we shaved about $9.5 million out of the budget,” said Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright. “Hopefully they’re going to be in areas where people notice it the least.”
The district was proud to add approximately $2.8 million to campus and departmental budgets, he continued, bringing the total to $135,396,213.
“We’re at a critical juncture and we need to start looking at every dollar and making sure that we build our fund balance back up for sustainability moving forward,” said Wright.
The item passed 5-0. Trustee Geoffrey Seibel was absent.
