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Tolleson board approves FY2027 proposed budget amid questions on FTE calculations and funding
Summary
The Tolleson board approved the proposed FY2027 budget (including tax-rate estimates and overrides). Public and board members pressed staff on a reported drop in FTE counts and how one-time DAA funding and a 2% state adjustment affect the district’s finances.
The Tolleson Union High School District governing board voted to approve the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget after a presentation by finance staff and discussion about enrollment projections, FTE counts and state funding assumptions.
Finance staff presented the proposed totals, capital figures and estimated tax-rate components for FY2027, and said the state’s minimum increase tied to Proposition 123 was set at 2 percent. Board members and public commenters asked detailed questions about a reported drop in full-time-equivalent (FTE) positions — the presentation showed a prior-year FTE of about 485 versus a projected 450.5 — and asked whether the change reflected program cuts, position eliminations or simply a different calculation method.
Miss Joyce Council explained that the apparent FTE drop resulted from changes in calculation methodology following staff turnover in the finance office and not from reductions in staffing allocations; she said staffing formulas (for example, teacher ratios) and programs were not cut as part of the proposed budget. The board asked for more transparent documentation of the FTE methodology and enrollment projections; staff said the proposed budget uses a projection for 13,391 students and assumes 3.5 percent enrollment growth in the five-year forecast but that actual counts will not be final until the state’s 40‑day and 100‑day counts.
Public commenter Dave Briggs pressed the board on a referenced $33 million in "dead cash," asking how those unspent property-tax collections could be used; staff did not provide a full plan in the meeting and said they would address questions in follow-up.
After discussion the board voted to approve the proposed budget; adoption is scheduled for the statutory hearing and final vote on the published adoption date (the board noted July 14 as the scheduled adoption meeting).
