Next Fort Worth school district budget includes $12 million in possible salary raises
An outline of the Fort Worth school district’s budget for the next fiscal year that its board adopted on Tuesday includes about $12 million it may use for raises.
A tuning of departmental spending in the $839.2 million general fund budget will come later. The budget development delay is due to a broad district computer network outage earlier this year. A malware attack took the district’s network “out of commission” for about 2 1/2 months, the district’s chief financial officer, Mike Ball, told the board.
Superintendent Kent Scribner has said that the district was in communication with Fort Worth police and the FBI in an effort to investigate the domain controller server attack. He has not publicly reported the probes’ conclusions.
At a public hearing that was held as part of the board’s final meeting in the school year, trustees voted 9-0 to adopt the budget that will cover spending from July 1 to June 30, 2021.
The budget adoption vote allows the district to operate before every section of its spending plan is settled.
“It will allow us to keep the lights on,” Ball told the board during a hearing conducted online, a practice permitted by a novel coronavirus-related emergency declaration that Gov. Greg Abbott issued.
Amendments to the 2020-2021 budget are expected in the coming months, Ball said.
The board will still need to consider compensation matters that could include raises of 2%. In August, it will set the tax rate.
The general fund’s revenue is $783.8 million. The board also adopted a $115.9 million debt service fund and a $52.9 million child nutrition service fund.
The budget adoption vote came largely without trustee discussion and no questions. The only offering during the budget public comment period came from the head of a union.
The compensation increase percentage was “encouraging” and was similar to raises approved by other district boards, said Steven Poole, the executive director of the United Educators Association, which represents school employees in Tarrant County.
The Texas Education Agency released on Tuesday guidance on attendance and related funding. It said virtual instruction may count toward a student’s attendance and be offered in real-time or through other forms. The state will fund districts that teach remotely, but the school systems must measure student engagement and progress and have plans approved by the state.
This story was originally published June 24, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
