Georgetown ISD begins budget workshop series with enrollment, funding and tax‑rate briefing
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Summary
At the first of five budget workshops, district finance staff reviewed enrollment trends, historical funding per student, payroll as the dominant expense, and options for local tax increases (golden/copper pennies). Staff said Georgetown remains at a relatively low M&O rate and that each "copper penny" is worth roughly $900,000 to the district; trustees asked for modeled compensation scenarios.
Penny, the district's finance leader, opened the budget portion of the Dec. 1 meeting by framing a multi‑month calendar for compensation and budget decisions and reviewing the district's enrollment and revenue assumptions.
Staff reported they used the demographer's projection for budgeting but that actual average daily attendance (the state funding metric) was slightly below the budget assumption after the second six‑week period. "We've used 14,131 [demographer projection] and 13,141 for our average daily attendance which is what we're actually funded on," a presenter said, noting small shortfalls in current counts but generally strong attendance performance.
Penny provided historical context: state funding per WADA has not kept pace with inflation; federal ESSER funds helped in the short term but are gone. On compensation, she said payroll is the largest expense (about 88 percent of the general fund) and that a 1 percentage‑point pay increase costs about $1.3 million. "Each 1% that we do pay raise is about a $1,300,000 cost," Penny said.
The CFO explained Texas property‑tax mechanics: the district sits near the low end of local M&O rates compared with neighboring districts and has not adopted copper pennies; staff estimated each copper penny would yield roughly $900,000 net to Georgetown ISD after recapture. Penny noted the tradeoffs trustees must weigh: raising local tax effort can increase ongoing revenue but may trigger higher recapture and public resistance.
On debt, Penny summarized outstanding obligations and refunding options and said staff were studying whether to retire specific bonds (an example defeasance of $7.5 million was discussed) to reduce future interest. She noted the district would return with modeled compensation scenarios (market adjustments, percentage raises and middle‑of‑the‑road options) for trustee consideration in January and February.
Next steps: staff will run compensation scenarios (do‑nothing, generic raise + market adjustments, and higher competitive targets), show costs and tradeoffs, and return to trustees during future workshops.