Las Cruces Public Schools survey finds campus safety, health and instructional resources top budget priorities

Chengy Alex Liu, deputy superintendent overseeing finance, budgeting and procurement for LAS CRUCES PUBLIC SCHOOLS, opened a budget town hall and said, “Over 4,500 people participated in our budget survey,” noting about 3,600 respondents were students. Mr. Saenz presented the quantitative results and said the district has budgeted roughly $17.5 million for safety expenditures this year.

The survey results will guide the district’s fiscal-year 2027 planning, officials said. Mr. Saenz said the top three priorities reported by respondents were campus safety (75%), health and wellness (73%) and instructional resources (60%). Within safety, respondents prioritized a weapons-free campus (73%), radio communications (71%) and secure facilities including cameras (69%). Officials said safety investments to date include secure entry vestibules, parking-lot improvements and weapon-detection systems.

Dr. Jules Barbati, the facilitator who analyzed free-text answers, summarized qualitative themes and read representative comments from respondents. He said 460 people offered additional thoughts on safety; common requests included “more security according to the size of the school,” statements such as “there are not enough security guards, and…more are needed,” and some calls for armed security. He also described calls for clearer threat-reporting procedures and stronger enforcement against student violence.

On health and wellness, Barbati said 260 respondents offered comments and the most frequent parent theme was student mental-health support (31 responses). Subthemes included requests for more mental-health programs, confidential listening supports and concerns about bullying and suicidal ideation. For instructional resources, 123 respondents commented; the leading theme was teacher professional development (25 responses) and other threads included student-technology use and explicit requests such as “no iReady” and calls for more physical textbooks.

Officials framed those priorities against the district’s revenue picture. Liu said operational funding from the recent legislative session (House Bill 2) supplies roughly half of routine operational revenue, with the remaining revenue coming from federal, state restricted and local capital sources. He described the district’s total budget as just over $600 million and said federal Title I, II and IV funds generally remain steady though some federal grants can decline slightly year to year. On state policy changes discussed in the meeting as “8020,” Liu said the district is waiting on the official unit value that will be published at the spring budget workshop and pledged to share exact numbers at a subsequent town hall.

Audience members asked about insurance-premium increases; Liu said the state insurance scenario labelled “C” projects about a 9.95% increase for next year and the district plans to set aside additional funds to cover higher employer contributions and enrollment growth. On special education, he said the district received a letter indicating it must meet a maintenance-of-effort requirement in the wake of the Yazzie Martinez rulings and that operational funds have covered rising special-education expenditures in recent years.

Liu acknowledged statewide and national enrollment declines and described district outreach and recruitment programs intended to recover students, including an online 'graduate alliance' and targeted outreach efforts. He said the district uses unit-value and equity adjustments to provide additional resources to schools with higher concentrations of at-risk, bilingual and special-education students.

Mr. Saenz said the district will post the town-hall presentation and budget materials on lcpsfinance.net and that the finance data dashboard refreshes nightly for public review. Officials invited the public to a final town hall on May 7, when the district expects to present a budget once unit values and the governor’s signatures on bills are finalized.

The meeting included a public question-and-answer period but no formal motions or votes.