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College Station ISD budget workshop projects $2.44M shortfall; staff outline staffing adjustments and raise scenarios
Summary
District finance staff projected about a $2.44 million deficit for 2026–27 and presented staffing-model adjustments, potential raise scenarios, and fund-balance implications while a volunteer budget advisory committee summarized statewide fiscal pressures and voucher impacts.
College Station ISD finance leaders on Thursday presented a draft 2026–27 budget that estimates roughly $152.56 million in revenue and roughly $155.63 million in expenditures before raises, leaving an estimated $2.44 million deficit.
Miss Wilson, presenting the estimated 2627 numbers, said staff modeled several cost-reduction and compensation scenarios. Without raises the estimated expenditures were about $155.63 million; staff showed options that would reduce staffing costs by reallocating positions (an estimated $622,000 in cost reductions from targeted staffing adjustments) and outlined raise scenarios ranging from modest (1% for professional staff) to broader mixes that would increase total cost by more than $1 million depending on the mix of administrative, professional and auxiliary increases.
Wilson noted the district’s payroll comprises roughly 80–84% of total spending and emphasized constrained options for extracting savings outside personnel. "The only way that you can really impact and reduce a budget is through personnel," she told trustees.
Trustees discussed several specific staffing moves staff had proposed: reductions at certain elementary campuses (11 elementary teacher reductions across the district in the model), neutral net changes at intermediate schools, small additions in middle/high school and three teachers tied to a new CTE facility (one custodian and one nurse also budgeted for the CTE site). Wilson said the district is evaluating the timing of Title funds that could absorb some classroom costs and that some reductions would occur via attrition to avoid displacing employees in good standing.
The board also heard a state-level overview from the Budget Advisory Committee presenter, who highlighted statewide enrollment declines, targeted state allotments that reduce local discretion, estimated voucher program demand (presenter cited about 274,000 applications statewide and a $1 billion appropriation) and the risk that targeted funding with strings could constrain local budgeting choices.
On fund balance metrics, staff presented rating-agency thresholds (days-of-cash/fund-balance measures) showing how each raise scenario would affect the district’s reserves and compliance with debt-service and cash-on-hand markers. Wilson said an updated compensation plan will return to trustees for consideration in May.
No final budget was adopted at the workshop; trustees instructed staff to return with a compensation recommendation and further refined numbers ahead of the formal adoption process.
