Georgetown ISD trustees review $3.7 million gap, consider campus and department cuts

Georgetown ISD trustees and staff on April 7 spent a workshop session modeling next year’s budget and reviewing preliminary recommendations to close a roughly $3.7 million projected deficit for 2025–26.

District Chief Financial Officer Jennifer (CFO) told trustees the district is using a demographer projection of 14,060 students and an adjusted attendance factor of about 93% to estimate average daily attendance. Using current law assumptions the district’s preliminary revenue and expenditure exercise produced a projected shortfall of about $3,700,000, she said.

The district presented a package of recommended reductions and revenue assumptions intended to bring the budget into balance. Those recommendations include asking all departments to reduce their budgets by a minimum of 5% and campuses to reduce overall campus budgets by about 10%. District staff said the combined set of proposed savings and revenue adjustments totals roughly $3.73 million in cost reductions and revenue changes.

Why it matters

Board members and staff said the district’s options for increasing local revenue are limited because of state tax rules and recapture. The board discussed the tax ratification election (TRE) process but were told a TRE large enough to close the gap would require a substantial rate change and likely would send a significant share of any increase to the state through recapture. As one trustee summarized after the modeling exercise: increasing revenue locally is “incredibly limited,” so the district must focus principally on reducing expenditures.

Key details from the workshop

- Revenue and assumptions: Staff…