Megan Navarro
DRIPPING SPRINGS — As a requirement by the state, the Dripping Springs ISD Board of Trustees approved the purchase of attendance credits at its Monday, Aug. 24, meeting.
School districts whose local revenue exceeds the level of entitlement established by the state are required to reduce their excess local revenue under Texas Education Code (TEC) Chapters 48 and 49, according to agenda documents. This has historically been known as “recapture” or “Robin Hood,” but is now referred to as excess local revenue by the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
DSISD is required to use one or more of the statutory options to reduce excess local revenue, in which the district has chosen to pursue the purchase of attendance credits again for the 2026-27 school year.
“It’s time for this law to change,” stressed trustee Rob McClelland. “This is getting old.”
Based on the approved budget, the district’s anticipated recapture payment is between $3.5 and $4 million, according to Chief Financial Officer Randy Rau.
The district could do “a lot” with those funds if it weren’t required to send it back to the state, said McClelland. This includes increasing teacher pay at a higher scale — something that was echoed during public comments by high school educator Chelsea Owens-Ramirez.
She explained that with 10 years of experience and two degrees, she will make just above $63,000 in base pay this year. Then, in March, her take-home pay will be less than $1,000, with taking maternity leave and daycare deductions into consideration — close to 75% of her paycheck.
“In the last eight years, we have had a total of roughly 16.8% in pay raises, not including the $5,000 given by the state. Seven out of those years have included an increase in insurance premiums and a decrease in [health savings account] contributions. Inflation over the same years has increased by 27% for this area, per the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Again, 16.8% in pay increase and 27% in inflation increase,” she stated. “The median income per the Federal Census Bureau for [Dripping Springs] was between $120[,000] and $150,000 in 2024. The median house price here is $570,000 to $700,000. With current rates, that is a monthly mortgage payment of about $4,000 for this area using the bottom of that range. That's $48,000 a year for housing and would leave somebody at my pay stub with $1,250 a month for utilities, payments, food [and] gas; this is just for a single household income with no dependents.”
Owens-Ramirez continued on to cite that the National Education Association ranked Texas as 46th in percent change for keeping up with increasing teacher pay over the last two years and current dollar salaries for classroom teachers has decreased by an estimated 4.6% since 2016.
“I'm tired of emails that say the board is pleased to announce a 1% pay raise, like I should be thankful for less than the bare minimum. In a board meeting years ago, it was stated: If teachers want more than a 1% raise, we need to know that before a specific date. In what reality should we be content with 1% when inflation is higher? We are losing educators because we cannot afford to live here nor anywhere nearby on our own and we shouldn't have to rely on a second income,” she said.
DSISD is required to pay the recapture payments or else it would be subject to other options, such as being forced to consolidate with a non-Chapter 49 district. While there could be a question of if lowering the tax rate could help, Rau explained that is not the case: “Essentially, the recapture payment is on our tier two, which is the money that we voted to increase. So, the tax rate that the voters voted to help the district out is really where we're sending money back, which are copper pennies.”
“There's no other option and if we don't have copper pennies, this district cannot be fully funded and we can't pay for all the programs that we offer … Obviously, we're going to do this because there's no other option, but I think it's important as we have conversations about compensation, about all kinds of things we're doing in this district, that we are constrained heavily by this law, Chapter 49 of the Texas Education Code,” McClelland stated. “So, if we're looking for something to get behind reforming in the next legislative session, this would certainly be one of them.”
There was also a slight increase of $50 per student for the average daily attendance allotment that the district receives from the state, but DSISD does not get all of that funding, unless every student comes to school every single day, trustee Kim Cousins clarified.
“So, it's very misleading thinking that we get this basic student allotment and it's around $6,500 and … our average attendance, I believe, is 96.5. That drops it to about $5,800 or so in funding for the students in this district,” she said. “It's just getting very, very difficult to make these ends meet with the constraints that we have and what the state continues to tell us what to do.”
Board president Shanda DeLeon noted that these kinds of conversations would be good to continue with the legislative subcommittee, so the ideas can be put on paper on what the district is fighting for.
School districts have been advocating for transparency in taxation and funding for at least the last three or four legislative sessions, said trustee Olivia Barnard. However, she said that it’s going to take parents and taxpayers also talking to the legislatures to help make a difference, because $5 billion a year in the state of Texas that is collected under school district taxation “does not stay in education; it goes to the state general fund.”
The board unanimously approved an agreement for the purchase of the attendance credits, which includes the delegation of the superintendent to obligate the district under TEC Chapter 49.
