Edgewood ISD superintendent outlines budget priorities; parent voices concern about campus fence funding
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Summary
Superintendent Dr. Eduardo Hernandez presented the district's budget priorities, highlighting $66 million for student success and efficiency savings; a parent speaker asked questions about how campus discretionary funds were spent and requested student input on raises.
Superintendent Dr. Eduardo Hernandez presented a visual overview of Edgewood Independent School District’s budget priorities and cautioned that the board and district had been discussing the budget since January.
Dr. Eduardo Hernandez said Priority 1 — student success — accounts for about $66,000,000 of the total budget and that the district increased the budget by $1,600,000 for the coming school year. He described the range of services included in that priority, from extracurricular activities and campus instructional leadership to nurses and librarians, and noted that testing expenses required by the state are a recurring, pass-through cost. The superintendent also described operational priorities and pipeline-development efforts and told the board the district had saved over $200,000 through role restructuring and natural attrition.
Dr. Hernandez highlighted financial controls and investments the district has made: the finance team earned a certificate from the Government Finance Officers Association for excellence in financial reporting, and a $50,000 investment in master-scheduling software already produced close to $1 million in savings, he said. He also referenced the district’s 2021 move to a unified frontline financial and student-information system intended to reduce duplicative systems and manpower.
During the public-communications portion of the meeting, parent Lisa Owens spoke on agenda item 4B to ask how schools were spending campus discretionary funds. Owens said each campus receives $15,000 and asked why her requests for a campus fence had not been fulfilled, noting recent grounds work and new plantings on other campuses. She recommended collecting student surveys for input on staffing and raises.
The superintendent’s presentation was framed as an informational report to the board; no formal budget adoption vote was recorded in the public portion of the transcript at that time. The consent agenda and other items continued after the report.