College Station ISD previews 2025–26 budget, outlines teacher pay options and timing for tax-rate decision

College Station Independent School District officials on June 17 presented a proposed 2025–26 budget and multiple compensation scenarios that would raise teacher and staff pay, and told the Board of Trustees the district must adopt a budget by July 1 to continue payroll and expenditures.

The presentation, given by Heather Wilson, district staff member, outlined three fund areas—child nutrition, debt service and the general fund—and described the pay scenarios built around the state’s House Bill 2 allotments. Wilson said the district is preparing for certified property values and TEA guidance before setting a final tax rate.

Why it matters: the board must adopt a legally compliant budget by July 1, or the district legally cannot expend funds. The presentation also signaled potential uses of state HB2 funding for one-time or ongoing salary increases and noted a timing-driven deficit in the debt service fund tied to a fiscal-year change.

Wilson summarized the child nutrition fund as roughly balanced, saying the district did not raise student meal prices and that federal reimbursements during COVID had previously elevated revenue. She told trustees the child nutrition budget is “balanced” at approximately $9.0 million in revenues and expenditures and noted a modest decline in local revenue that staff offset with spending reductions.

On debt service, Wilson said the district proposes to hold the debt-service tax at 23.7¢ per $100 of assessed value, the same rate used the prior year, but warned that a roughly $2.0 million deficit appears in the debt service fund because of timing caused by changing the district fiscal year. "So our proposed budget is a $2,000,000 deficit in the debt service fund. That totally has to do with timing because we changed our fiscal year," Wilson said.

Wilson explained the timing issue: the district is collecting taxes for February 2026 and August 2026 payments while incurring expenditures on an August 2025 payment, creating a year-to-year mismatch that boosts the reported deficit. She said the district will monitor certified values and may amend the budget later.

The general fund presentation focused on compensation plans and revenue uncertainty tied to state guidance and property-value compression. Wilson told trustees the public notice was published using current law and that preliminary calculations indicate a compression-rate difference: the notice used a $68.22 figure compared with a working estimate closer to $69, based on preliminary (not certified) values and the new $140,000 homestead exemption in state law.

On compensation, Wilson described six proposed plans (presented as plans A–F) and grouped them into two broad buckets for board discussion. The plans rely on House Bill 2 funding and propose either $2,500 stipends for many employees or a $5,000 payment for qualifying classroom teachers with five or more years of experience. She said districts must code teachers correctly for TEA (PEIMS) to receive targeted HB2 funding. "The staff raises that are in this plan are based on plan F. That does not mean that we have to adopt plan F. What that means is I've done the worst case scenario that we're looking at," Wilson said.

Wilson listed which employee categories would receive the $2,500 allotments if the board chose that approach: librarians, nurses, dyslexia and ESL staff, instructional coaches, and other employees who do not meet the state’s O-87 classroom-teacher PEIMS coding. She also described pay-family increases for administrators, clerical and auxiliary staff, and options tied to 3%, 4% and 5% midpoint increases.

District staff projected that adopting the highest-cost scenario (a 5% midpoint increase for pay families plus the HB2-stipend structure) would create a roughly $2.1 million deficit in the general fund as presented; Wilson described several contingency and one-time items in the budget that temper long-term impact.

Trustees asked questions about funding sources and how much of the pay increase would be covered by HB2. Wilson said the district expects about $515,000 from the HB2 allotment for one part of the funding and estimated other state-run runs could provide roughly $3.5 million to $4.4 million depending on final TEA decisions and which positions TEA counts as HB2-eligible. She warned there is uncertainty about whether federally funded teacher positions might be excluded from state counts, which would shift costs to federal grants.

Wilson also described several adjustments in campus staffing and budgets—an increase of $75,006.40 in campus budgets funded by shifting savings from central office, contingencies (including curriculum, ESSER loss mitigation and financial software), and line-item reductions (training and departmental budgets) that produced about $799,000 in savings. She said the district currently shows an unassigned fund balance near $38.5 million and anticipates adding about $6.0 million in the current year under the presented assumptions.

Next steps and board directions: trustees were told staff will finalize numbers after certified property values are received (Wilson said certified numbers are expected July 25) and that the board will set a tax rate in August or September. Wilson said staff will return with recommended budget adjustments and an amended budget when final TEA and value data are available.

Actions recorded in the meeting included opening and closing the public hearing on the budget (no citizens signed up to speak) and a staff direction to return to the board with budget amendments in August/September and to bring the tax-rate adoption for board action later this summer.

The workshop presentation contained additional technical points about TEA calculations, homestead-exemption changes (100,000 to 140,000), and how the state’s "hold harmless" calculations interact with local tax-rate decisions; trustees were advised these are preliminary numbers pending TEA certification.

Ending note: staff emphasized the presentation was an initial, conservative set of scenarios intended to protect against worst-case financial outcomes; the board will review formal action items at an upcoming meeting when certified valuations and final TEA guidance are available.