Facing a likely budget shortfall for the upcoming year, La Joya ISD leadership discussed cost savings measures and employee raises at a board workshop Monday.
CFO Joel Trevino told the board the district is facing a current shortfall of as much as $30 million for this year, although pending decisions from the state could decrease that number by several million dollars.
Trevino says the district predicts enrollment declines next year.
“And of course, with enrollment less, our average daily attendance would also be going down,” he said.
In many ways, La Joya’s discussion was a good case study for financial problems and solutions that have cropped up at other Rio Grande Valley districts over the course of the pandemic.
On the one hand, enrollment — a concern for all districts before the pandemic — has only grown in importance as districts saw enrollment decline over the pandemic.
Uncertainty over enrollment, which is tied to state funding, necessarily leads to uncertainty over finances.
On the other hand, a glut of federal ESSER funds means districts find themselves with enough chips in their pocket to place some significant bets on ways to maintain and increase enrollment.
McAllen ISD, notably, used $18.5 million in ESSER monies to free up funding to bankroll a new collegiate high school program, and to partially fund expansion projects at Quinta Mazatlan and IMAS.
PSJA ISD last month OK’d almost $700,000 in vaccine incentive gift cards in an effort to get students back on campus.
Districts are also prepared to spend heavily on the employees who teach those students.
Earlier this semester, when campuses filled on a large scale for the first time since the pandemic began, districts found themselves in something of a bidding war for substitute teachers, many saying there simply weren’t enough educators to staff classrooms consistently.
In Edinburg, trustees approved a sizable pay bump for nurses this February after administration heard reports that they were being poached by hospitals.
Schools are afraid of losing staff, and staffing those classrooms was among La Joya’s chief concerns at its workshop.
With a new teacher salary of $52,150, La Joya ISD counts itself only about average compared to other districts in the region.
Administration presented a chart to the board comparing their new teacher salaries with 10 other districts in the region; Edinburg topped the list at $53,750, Brownsville came in last at $48,500.
La Joya was fifth.
The district’s goal, assistant superintendent for human resources Yvonne Flores-Ayala said, is to “remain as competitive as possible when it comes to our teachers, librarians and nurses.”
“We know that our teachers provide educational excellence for our students each and every single day,” she said. “We want to make sure that we not only retain the quality teachers that we have, but we’re also able to recruit quality teachers as well.”
To do that, the administration proposed two different salary models, one that bumped that $52,150 rate up to $53,000 and another that moved it to $54,000.
The district currently spends $116,911,482 on those salaries, Ayala said; the lower increase would increase salary cost by $2,263,853 and the higher one would increase it by $2,981,121.
That higher one would theoretically put La Joya at the top of the pile, although it’s likely other districts will adjust their rates as well.
“It may not put us at the very top, but we want to work our way back to the top and again be one of the highest paying districts for our teachers,” Ayala said.
A fair chunk of those salaries for this year and next year — $40 million all together — is slated to be paid with federal funds.
“In our original application, we did indicate that we were going to be allocating $20 million for this school year and the upcoming school year. So that is something that we are doing, we reclassified some … positions to pay them out of ESSER,” Ayala said.
But wait — there’s more. The administration is also proposing a retention stipend for currently employed employees who stay for the upcoming school year. Ayala says administration will bring an action item to the board for a $2,500 stipend for employees to be paid out in two installments, one in August and one in December.
Retention stipends — often healthy ones — have become another fairly common sight at Valley schools since the pandemic began.
PSJA, for instance, paid out a $3,000 retention stipend in August of last year. McAllen trustees approved accelerating the payout of $2,000 in stipends this February.
Those proposed pay increases at La Joya don’t mean there won’t be harder financial decisions to make. CFO Trevino outlined a variety of potential cost saving measures, among them the sale of district properties, consolidation of campuses, reduction of central office staff through attrition and evaluating professional and contracting services.
Trevino said at the board’s next meeting trustees will discuss in executive session which properties could be headed to market.
“That would be just to bring in additional resources to the district,” he said.
Trevino didn’t say what schools may face consolidation, but he noted enrollment will likely be a factor in the decision.
The district will also eye closing or reducing operations of the Howling Trails Golf Course.
“We are checking with legal counsel on that just to make sure that it’s OK for us to reduce the number of holes in the golf course,” he said.
Other Hidalgo County districts grappling with falling enrollment and troubled finances have shuttered facilities over the past year.
Valley View ISD closed its police department and its fifth grade campus almost exactly a year ago because of financial strains caused by low enrollment. McAllen ISD closed an elementary school late last year and has since listed it, while in Mercedes finances prompted the poorly received consolidation of two high schools.
Just last month, Donna ISD closed an alternative high school.
Leadership in La Joya will also consider saving money on the personnel side of things.
Refraining from adding additional central office positions and shrinking that department through attrition, Trevino told trustees, could save a significant chunk of change over the next year or two.
The district saved some $2.7 million doing that over the past two years, he said, and can likely save a little shy of an additional $2 million through further shrinkage.
Administration is also, Trevino said, considering cutting out of district travel for central office staff for the next school year.
