Stafford MSD reviews draft 2025–26 budget after major state school finance changes

At a June 25 joint workshop, Stafford Municipal School District trustees and the City Council heard a legislative briefing from Mo Casey consultant Dr. Amber Lassang and a draft 2025–26 budget presentation from district finance staff laying out how statewide school finance changes will affect local pay, special education funding and the district’s tax-rate planning.

The district’s first-joint budget session for the 2025–26 cycle came as the Texas Legislature enacted a large school finance package that, according to Dr. Amber Lassang of Mo Casey, directs billions in new, but narrowly targeted, funding to public education. "The most important thing that passed was the state budget and school finance teacher pay," Lassang said during the presentation, adding that the package combines direct teacher-pay allotments with a new per-student allotment for district-wide costs.

Why it matters: local officials said the new state provisions will increase pay for many classroom teachers, change how districts budget for non-teaching costs, and introduce new data, reporting and implementation tasks for the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the comptroller that could alter district revenues or reporting deadlines.

Major legislative details described to the district - Teacher pay: The statewide package includes roughly $4.2 billion directed toward uniform teacher pay increases. For smaller districts (under 5,000 students), Lassang said the allotment is roughly $4,000 per teacher with three to four years’ experience and $8,000 for teachers with five or more years’ experience; larger districts receive different amounts. District officials estimated Stafford MSD would receive roughly $1.216 million from the teacher retention allotment based on current staff experience profiles. - Allotment for basic costs: The law creates a new “allotment for basic costs” of about $106 per enrolled student to help cover district-wide expenses that do not rely on average daily attendance (ADA), such as benefits, payroll taxes and utilities; Lassang cautioned $106 per student will not fully cover these costs. - Support-staff retention: A separate support-staff allotment pays approximately $45 per ADA aimed at non-teaching employees, including nurses, custodial and cafeteria staff. - Definition and timing: TEA will use PEIMS coding and an October enrollment snapshot to determine eligibility; teachers hired after the October snapshot will not generate the retention allotment for that first year, though districts must still follow their pay scales. - Special education and other lines: Special education funding is being rewritten and will not fully take effect until the 2026–27 school year; the legislature set additional funding for special education and school safety (Lassang cited roughly $430 million for safety). The package also contains new literacy/numeracy screening requirements and an intervention stipend capped at a district level. - Vouchers and home-school provisions: The session established a voucher program in which eligible students may use state payments toward accredited private schools (Lassang described a starting amount of $10,000 per student, subject to accreditation and age/existence rules); homeschool families are eligible for smaller, targeted stipends (Lassang cited up to $2,000 for specific items). - Property-tax changes: The bill increases homestead exemptions (from $100,000 to $140,000 was cited as an example) and expands an additional exemption for taxpayers who are disabled or over 65. It also raised the business personal-property exemption level (Lassang cited $125,000) and created new comptroller and bond-reporting requirements for taxing units. - Procurement threshold and other items: The legislature increased the competitive procurement threshold for goods and services (excluding fuel) to $100,000 before requiring competitive procurement; other items in the session affect facility reporting, election deadlines and a new bond review data submission process.

District budget and tax-rate overview presented District finance staff summarized the district’s working assumptions and draft numbers for the coming year: the April estimated certified property values the district has so far (a projected 3.46% increase in total appraised value), a projected refined ADA increase of about 60 students (from current reports to an estimated ADA of roughly 3,237), and a tentative maintenance-and-operations (M&O) tax-rate structure that, using current estimates, would leave the district’s total proposed tax rate the same as last year (about 1.00212). The presentation said the district is building a balanced general fund budget using a 99% collection rate assumption.

Personnel and pay impacts: The district plans to raise the starting teacher salary to $63,000, which the presenters said would increase personnel costs by roughly $286,008 for the salary change and about $115,973 for step increases, for a combined personnel impact of about $402,000. Combined with the estimated state retention allotment, the finance slides showed an increase of roughly $1.21 million attributable to the state allotment plus locally funded salary adjustments and step increases.

Debt service and child nutrition: Staff reported an estimated excess revenue in the debt-service fund (roughly $3.055 million) with planned defeasance/early amortization spending of about $2.798 million to reduce debt earlier than scheduled. Separately, the child nutrition fund has a declining fund balance; staff warned it merits monitoring though federal funding still supports the program at present.

Questions and clarifications raised during the meeting Trustees and council members asked whether Stafford is classified as a coastal county (staff said it is not), how defeasance penalties will affect property-wealthy districts (presenter said districts with no state INS aid face no penalty), and whether districts are required to pay retention increases for teachers hired after October if the state does not fund them in year one (presenter: districts must still follow their pay scale, but the state retention allotment would not be provided until the following year). On vouchers, Lassang clarified parents will not receive a direct $10,000 check; the comptroller will develop functionality for direct payments to providers.

Next steps and timeline District staff said the board and council will hold a second joint meeting on Aug. 5 and plan to adopt a final budget and tax rate at the Aug. 25 meeting ahead of the statutory deadline to adopt a tax rate (Aug. 31). The presenters repeatedly cautioned that final TEA and comptroller rules, and final certified values that counties provide in late July, will determine the district’s final calculations.

Votes and meeting outcome The school board side recorded a motion to adjourn (mover: Vice President Jim Batiste; seconder: Secretary Cesar Matlanga). The chair called the motion, asked for all those in favor and declared the motion carried. No roll-call vote tally was provided in the transcript.

The workshop closed with staff advising additional rule-making and implementation guidance from state agencies is expected and that several aspects of the legislative package require further agency-level rulemaking before district impacts are final.