Editor’s note: This story contains a correction and clarification about how many non NES schools were told their budgets will be cut by 12 percent next year.
A room full of Houston ISD parents, students and teachers got to shelter in place along with Superintendent Mike Miles and his administrators Thursday night when a tornado watch turned into a tornado warning and the Hattie Mae White administration building lost power, lights and the internet.
Thursday night was supposed to be the public’s first chance to see the proposed 2024-25 budget. But Miles’ presentation was derailed by the elements. Quick repairs to restore power weren’t working and the meeting was eventually adjourned and set to take place next week instead. HISD announced later in the evening that there would be no school on Friday; citing damage across the district.
Not having all the details didn’t stop one speaker after another from decrying the recent mass principal, teacher, librarian and support staff firings throughout the district. Plans are to expand the number of New Education System campuses by 45 more schools with $732 million in total directed to the 130 campuses that will be in the program promoted by Miles. Correction: About two dozen non NES schools were told that they will take a 12 percent cut to their budgets, but other non NES schools were not cut that much or in some cases not at all, according to an HISD spokesman.
Budget details were released to the media as the board started at 5:30 p.m. and are attached below. In a pre-board meeting press conference, Miles said his team attacked the budget gap — now said to be $528 million instead of the previous $450 million — by using zero based budgeting. The higher amount, he said, was reached after discovering even more recurring expenses and personnel slots had been funded by federal COVID relief funds that end this fall.
U.S. Rep Sylvia Garcia this week called on the U.S. Department of Education to investigate how HISD used the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds.
We did did receive a copy of the tentative $2.1 billion budget, one that still retains a fund balance of $800 million despite losing the federal COVID relief money. To do so, meant cutting a lot of positions, however, which in the case of teachers, Miles has called “right-sizing.”
The 2024-25 budget is a $110 million decrease from the 2023-24 budget, which still increasing the total allocation to schools: $1,366,323,219 (a $62 million increase from this year)
Before adjourning, board member Ric Campo announced the budget workshop will be presented Thursday, May 23 at 4 p.m. This was met by yells from the crowd many of whom wanted to continue the meeting in the dark. Regulations would not permit the school board to do that, he said. The news that the next meeting will start at 4 p.m., when many people are still at work, was also loudly criticized.
The board must decide on its budget for the next year by June to meet Texas Education Agency regulations.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
