West Oso ISD board hears legislative update; district staff recommend delaying pay proposals until state funding is finalized

Superintendent Ms. Moore and district staff presented the West Oso Independent School District’s proposed 2025–26 budget priorities and a legislative update at a board workshop, and recommended postponing formal salary proposals until the state’s final appropriations are known.

The discussion focused on competing legislative proposals — including changes to the basic allotment, a proposed teacher-incentive allotment, and increased school-safety funding — and on how several possible outcomes would translate to the district’s bottom line. Ms. Moore told the board that the district plans to "take the safe side and not propose the salary" in the initial budget until the Legislature’s actions and any state funding arrive.

Why the board mattered: West Oso faces declining enrollment and constrained local revenue, and a portion of any additional state funding would be legally earmarked for teacher pay under the bills discussed. District staff said waiting for the Legislature’s action would allow the board to adopt a budget in August and make any subsequent salary changes via a budget amendment if extra state money arrives later.

Key points from the presentation

- Timing and uncertainty: Staff noted the Legislature’s schedule — committee and floor actions in the spring with governors’ decisions in June — and warned special sessions or changes could delay final funding. Ms. Moore said June is the expected time when funding results should be known, and that the governor has until June 22 to sign measures that reach his desk.

- Revenue scenarios and teacher-pay rules: Staff walked the board through Senate and House proposals. In the district’s summary, staff estimated a potential revenue increase of about $2.2 million under a composite of proposals. They showed that, under one commonly discussed approach, 40% of that new revenue would be designated for salary increases; of that 40%, staff said 75% would be required to go to teachers and 25% to other staff. Using district counts (141 teachers), staff estimated an illustrative, straight-line increase of roughly $5,079 per teacher if the full scenario materialized.

- Programmatic allotments: The presentation reviewed potential increases to multiple allotments that would affect West Oso, including school safety funding (per-campus and per-student elements), a proposed $1,000 special-education evaluation allotment, adjustments to transportation factors, and small increments for bilingual and early-education allotments.

- Constraints on local choices: District staff cautioned that if the board approved a local salary increase before the Legislature’s final actions, the district could be committed to a pay schedule that state funding later changes; staff emphasized the board could adopt a budget in August and then use a budget amendment to apply any new state dollars retroactively if the state provides additional funds after the board’s initial adoption.

- Budget framing and priorities: Staff said the district is pursuing a ‘‘student-centered’’ budget and a modified zero-based review of positions and expenses to protect fund balance and preserve debt capacity for possible future construction (board members emphasized a need for a junior high as a long-term capital priority).

Staff and board questions and clarifications

Board members pressed staff on several operational details: how an increased homestead exemption or other property-tax relief proposals would affect the district’s Maintenance & Operations (M&O) and Interest & Sinking (I&S) collections; whether the district’s current M&O and I&S tax rates (staff cited M&O at 0.67 and I&S at 0.45 in discussion) would change; and how proposed allotments would be calculated (per campus vs. per student or via attendance accounting). Staff noted some legislative language calculates funds using total state and local revenue per student rather than the basic allotment alone, which can produce different per-student dollar results than some public summaries suggest.

Staff also explained program-level details: an increase in a special-education evaluation allotment (presented as $1,000 per initial evaluation in the bills discussed) would help pay for diagnostic work that the district currently subsidizes internally; transportation factors rising from 1.00 to about 1.13 in a proposal would modestly increase transportation funding; and the teacher-incentive design discussed emphasizes growth metrics rather than raw achievement scores.

Operations and staffing changes reviewed

During the budget review staff presented a proposed 2025–26 pay scale cleanup and position adjustments. Items discussed included removing a stand-alone ‘‘parent engagement coordinator’’ position from the district salary schedule and directing parent-engagement duties through existing programs (for example, the ACE grant-funded program specialist and Title I activities). Staff said portions of some employees’ duties are grant-funded rather than paid from the district’s general fund.

Board members asked for clearer documentation of where salaries and costs are coded (for example, where portions of a program specialist’s salary are charged to ACE grant funds versus district funds). Staff agreed to provide supporting documentation and a clearer line-item breakdown.

Other operational notes

Board members and staff discussed groundskeeping, maintenance, bus-driver shortages, and turnaround time on requisitions and vendor packets. Staff said they are balancing contracted services and in-house labor while striving to meet compliance and vendor-packet requirements.

Next steps and timing

Staff told the board they will (a) prepare budget worksheets that can accommodate multiple salary-percentage scenarios so the district can move quickly if the state provides targeted funds, and (b) provide additional enrollment-forecasting details (board members asked for multi-year forecasts) and more explicit line-item documentation tying grant-funded work to district responsibilities. The board scheduled a follow-up workshop on nonpayroll items and debt capacity with the intent to continue the budget review and capital planning discussion.

The board moved into closed session after the budget workshop.