Georgetown ISD CFO outlines budget outlook, legislative risks and VATRE timeline

Jennifer Hannah, Georgetown ISD chief financial officer, told the board of trustees during a May 5 workshop that the district’s 2025–26 budget picture has improved slightly but remains contingent on pending state legislation and several moving parts.

Hannah said two bills she and district staff are following closely — Senate Bill 2 (a voucher/education savings account bill) and House Bill 2 (the main school funding bill) — could change district revenue but are not final. "Senate Bill 2 ... was passed by the house and the senate, and it was signed by the governor over the weekend," Hannah said, and she added that students would be eligible to begin using education savings accounts in the 2026–27 school year. On House Bill 2 she said, as written at the time of the workshop, "we would get a $395 increase in the basic allotment," though she cautioned the bill could change in the senate.

Until the legislature’s final actions are known, the district plans to adopt a compensation plan with the June budget adoption that can be amended later if state revenue materializes. "We will be adopting a compensation plan in June with the budget," Hannah said, adding that the plan could be amended in July if late legislative action provides more revenue.

Hannah walked trustees through updated budget assumptions and several quantitative details used to model 2025–26: a demographer-projected enrolled student count of roughly 14,060 and an adjusted average-daily-attendance assumption of 93 percent (yielding an ADA figure the staff has used for modeling of about 13,076); preliminary property values from the Williamson Central Appraisal District that came in at about $25.1 billion (up from a projection of $24.6 billion); a projected payroll total of about $132.3 million (a net increase of roughly $900,000 from prior projections); and total projected revenues of about $70.2 million (an increase of roughly $1.9 million from last month). The current working budget at the time of the workshop showed a very small excess balance of $40,725.

Hannah and other staff described a number of items that could materially affect the final numbers: potential changes to the homestead exemption and business personal property exemptions under bills being debated in Austin; an ongoing property-value study that staff expect will yield about $155,000 when finalized; and a state appropriation proposal to offset reductions in Medicaid-related School Health and Related Services (SHARS) reimbursements. Hannah said the SHARS-related proposal would appropriate about $934 million statewide to help districts recoup lost reimbursement revenue.

Board members pressed staff about several specific policy changes in the Legislature that could affect district operations. Hannah noted that one proposal would place new limits on debt issuance, including capping new debt at 20 percent of average property-tax collections for the preceding three years and restricting May election timing; the proposal also would require November elections. Hannah gave the board a rough example: the district’s 2024 bond had roughly $10 million in principal and interest, and with district property-tax collections around $140 million, a 20 percent cap would equate to about $14 million — likely not affecting the 2024 bond but signaling a constraint on larger future issuances.

The board also discussed increases in the state allotment for school safety and security funding. Hannah said a proposed change would raise the allotment from $10 per ADA and $15,000 per campus to $14 per ADA and $37,000 per campus, which she estimated would add roughly $90,000–$100,000 to Georgetown ISD’s funding based on the district’s student counts and campus numbers; she said those dollars largely would free general-fund dollars currently used for safety staffing such as school resource officers. "We spend more on security than the allotment. So what it would do would free additional funds to use in other areas," Hannah said.

On recapture and property-value math, staff explained the district is pursuing an annual property-value study that looks back up to three years and may result in a comptroller adjustment that reduces recapture and yields additional revenue; Hannah told trustees the most recent audit should yield about $155,000 to the district.

Hannah closed with a reminder of near-term budget milestones and the timetable for possible tax-rate actions: if trustees wanted to pursue a voter-approval tax-rate election (VATRE) the board would need to select an efficiency auditor (the workshop mentioned a target of selecting one at the June 16 board meeting), complete the auditor work by July 4, receive the district’s maximum compressed rate from TEA (projected on the slide for Aug. 5), call the election by Aug. 18 if the board chooses to proceed, and hold the election on Nov. 4. Hannah and other staff emphasized that those dates are statutory and that the legislative session could still alter revenue assumptions before the board adopts a final budget in June.

Why it matters: the district’s compensation decisions, program funding and capital planning hinge on the Legislature’s actions and on local revenue calculations. Trustees indicated they will adopt a conservatively structured compensation plan in June with the intent to amend it after legislative outcomes are known and to continue discussing a VATRE and community engagement if additional local revenue is needed.

The board moved to the bond-project update after the budget discussion concluded.