Cy-Fair - Jersey Village Edition | May 2025

Education

BY RYAN REYNOLDS

Cy-Fair ISD projects $50M shortfall

“I really want to put some money aside as well to try to address and bring back

as many of those [bus] routes as we possibly can. Beyond that, it’s really just a case of, what are we going to get from the Legislature?” DOUG KILLIAN, CYFAIR ISD SUPERINTENDENT

With $1.2 billion in projected expenses, Cy-Fair ISD is exploring options to address a projected $50.1 million budget shortfall for scal year 2025- 26. CFISD Chief Financial O€cer Karen Smith said at the April 15 meeting the shortfall is due to a lack of state funding and an anticipated 1% drop in student enrollment, among other factors. A closer look Public schools in Texas have not seen an increase in the basic allotment of $6,160 per stu- dent since 2019, according to the Texas Education Agency. Smith said the current state funding formula does not account for cost-of-living increases or in‹ation, which rose by 20% from 2019 to August 2024, according to a CFISD presentation on Feb. 6. To cut costs, CFISD administrators are rec- ommending reducing the number of unlled positions by 2%, which could save about $18 million, Smith said. The district is also considering

adjusting teacher allocations to match the pro- jected 1% drop in enrollment, potentially saving an additional $6.8 million. Smith said the district expects a $5.4 million increase in spending to cover a full year of trans- portation salaries and instructional software. Superintendent Doug Killian outlined several of his top priorities for the district, including: • A general pay increase to help with teacher retention • $1,000 stipends for teachers at economically disadvantaged campuses • Stipends to teachers in special education and other critical shortage areas • Using savings to address police o€cers, parapro- fessionals, bus drivers and other positions What’s next CFISD o€cials will hold a public budget work- shop May 22 and plan to adopt the budget June 23.

“We had a decit budget [for] this current budget, we’ll be looking at a

decit budget [for] the next budget, and of course, if you run decit budgets, ... you run out of money. That is denitely not sustainable.” JUSTIN RAY, CYFAIR ISD TRUSTEE

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