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Austin Independent School District Superintendent Meria Carstarphen and the district’s Chief Financial Officer, Nicole Conley-Abram, presented the Prelimniary Budget for the 2010-11 school year to the Board during its Feb. 22 meeting.

“The highest priority for this budget is to mobilize resources to achieve our goals as outlined by the Trustees, especially preparing all our students for college, careers, and life in a globally competitive economy,” Carstarphen said.

Carstarphen added that the budget was guided by parameters previously passed by the Board, which include alignments with the district’s five-year Strategic Plan. Although all of the 46 action steps identified in the Strategic Plan cannot be implemented in 2010-2011, 24 action steps have been identified as Year-One priorities and are separated into three groups:

Mandatory/Mission Critical

Unfunded Action Step Priorities

Priorities Currently Covered by Existing Structures and Resources.

Group one requires $9.1 million in additional funding to support action steps. If AISD does everything to address Group 2, it will require an additional budgetary investment of approximately $64 million.

In FY2010, the district implemented $14.6 million in budget reductions. Of these reductions, $8 million was considered permanent, whereas $6.5 million were only temporary reductions. To balance the 2010–11 Budget, and avert the projected structural deficit of $7.1 million, the Preliminary Budget proposes to cut and eliminate several programs, which will reduce the general fund budget by $8.3 million. The District also is poised to implement additional savings measures to avert $4.8 million in budget increases. The total $13.1 million in budget savings, reductions, and reprogramming will both eliminate the deficit, and provide a small down payment on Strategic Plan initiatives.

In consideration of the Board’s budget parameters, the Preliminary Budget proposes reductions that will affect local classrooms the least. Further reductions may require adjustments to the staffing formulas since the majority of budget expenditures are related to school-level personnel. The district will not be able to afford a salary increase for staff without additional budget reductions, a referendum for a tax rate increase, or an allocation from the fund balance.

The entire Preliminary Budget document is available on the district website at www.austinisd.org. Trustees have scheduled three community conversations about the Preliminary Budget, including one in Northwest Austin scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on March 11 at Anderson High School, 8403 Mesa Drive. The district’s final budget is scheduled for adoption by the Board in August.

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