Judson ISD trustees briefed on enrollment dip, contingency planning and draft plan to keep disaster-relief pennies via voter approval

The Judson Board of Trustees heard a budget update Thursday night as district administrators outlined a conservative revenue forecast for 2025–26, warned that enrollment and average daily attendance (ADA) have dipped since November and recommended planning now for a possible voter-approved tax ratification election to preserve roughly $12 million in one-time revenue.

Administrators told trustees the district’s enrollment at the end of the third six‑week period was 23,448 students and cumulative ADA for that period was 21,038. “We typically see a dip during the Christmas holidays and then increased enrollment after Martin Luther King holiday,” said Doctor Gosch, a staff member. District finance staff reported a baseline ADA projection for 2025–26 of about 20,052 and said using conservative figures is intended to avoid overstating revenue.

Why it matters: Judson is budgeting on ADA for state funding but staffs classrooms and pays salaries based on projected enrollment. A 1,000‑student ADA reduction the administration flagged could translate into roughly $6 million–$10 million less state revenue under current funding multipliers, according to district finance staff, a gap that would increase budget pressure if one‑time revenue sources are not available.

Administrators described three revenue items that narrowed a projected $40 million deficit to a current estimate near $25 million: federal ESSER relief received during COVID years, a one‑year “disaster relief pennies” tax shift the board approved last year that yielded about $12 million, and property‑value audit recoveries the district said have returned roughly $5 million this year. “We used ESSER and those property value studies to avoid the worst‑case deficit, but those are one‑time pieces,” Doctor Fields, a staff member, told trustees.

Board members repeatedly pressed for contingency planning tied to two uncertainties: (1) pending legislation and voucher proposals at the state level that could move students (and funding) out of public schools, and (2) how final legislative actions on school finance (for example, changes to the homestead exemption or the basic allotment) will affect Judson’s revenues. Trustee Macias urged the district to develop a “plan B” by April or May that lays out concrete staffing and program actions if enrollment and ADA fall sharply.

On vouchers: Trustees and staff discussed the possibility of a program of private‑school vouchers being approved by the Texas Legislature this session. “We don’t know if we’re going to lose 10% of our students to vouchers, 15%, 20%,” Trustee Mesias said. Doctor Fields and other staff noted there are many unknowns in early legislative proposals—eligibility rules, which private schools would accept vouchers and how parents would respond—so the district is treating voucher impact as a risk to be modeled, not a certainty.

VATRE proposal: To preserve the $12 million the board obtained last year by moving disaster‑relief pennies from the I&S (interest & sinking) side to M&O (maintenance & operations) for one year, administrators recommended asking voters to keep the tax rate at its current level through a voter‑approved tax ratification election (VATRE, also called a VADER/VADRE in discussion). Staff said the intent is not to increase the current tax rate but to retain the revenue stream that would otherwise expire. “All we did was shift three and a half pennies from one bucket to the other while keeping the tax rate the same,” Doctor Fields said. If the legislature compresses rates later in the session, the district would calculate how many pennies would be required in a VATRE to maintain the current M&O revenue.

Timeline and costs: Staff presented a rough timeline that would include additional workshops in February, April and May and, if the board chooses, a November ballot date for the VATRE. Trustees asked staff to return with estimated costs of a VATRE campaign, success/failure rates for peer districts, and a yield chart showing how much revenue each incremental “penny” generates under different compression scenarios.

Program and spending context: Trustees were reminded that personnel costs make up roughly 90% of the district’s budget and that staffing decisions cannot usually be made quickly without affecting instruction. Administrators said their budget planning uses conservative revenue assumptions and that, historically, the district has prepared “most‑dangerous” (worst‑case) and “most‑likely” scenarios to present to the board when adopting a budget.

What the board directed: Trustees asked administration to return with: (1) a formal contingency framework (staffing and program triggers tied to ADA/enrollment thresholds); (2) revenue yield estimates per cent of tax rate retained; (3) VATRE cost estimates and audits of peer district outcomes; (4) updated special‑education expense breakout the board requested; and (5) an updated ADA/enrollment trend analysis from demographers and internal finance staff (Moe Casey was cited as the district’s in‑house financial projection source).

Bottom line: District leaders said they will keep presenting conservative projections and contingency options as the Legislature and enrollment trends become clearer. “We are not asking for a tax increase,” Doctor Fields said. “We are asking voters whether we can keep the tax rate as it is so we can retain the $12 million we used this year.”

Ending: The budget discussion concluded in the workshop with trustees asking staff for the more detailed, numeric contingency plans and voter‑outreach cost estimates to be returned at future budget workshops over the next months.