On August 24, 2020, the CISD Board of Trustees approved the district’s 2020-2021 budget with a $7 million deficit. Details on this budget are available at www.coppellisd.com/budget. CISD cannot continue to run with a budget shortfall of this size. CISD is embarking on a two-year process to reduce our deficit level. 

Factors contributing to the current adopted budget deficit include 

• Declining growth of revenue for CISD due to  House Bill 3
• Slowing growth of enrollment
• Implementation of full-day PreK with only 50% funding from the state (unfunded mandate) 
• Increased compensation for teachers, veteran teachers, staff (also requirement of HB 3)
• Increase in additional full-time employees
• Opening of CHS9 (FY2019) and Canyon Ranch (FY2020) and the hiring of teachers and staff for these new campuses 
• Switch to new vendor for bus transportation causing transportation costs to dramatically increase
• Increased funding requirements for CTE from state 
• Growth of Special Education enrollment and expenditures
• Budgeted $500,000 for COVID-19 related expenses
• Increase in safety costs with the City of Coppell no longer fully funding School Resources Officers and the CISD funding 100 percent the School Resource Deputies for our schools outside the City of Coppell 
• The City of Coppell also only pays for 50 percent of the crossing guards used in Coppell
  
  

CISD typically submits and the Board of Trustees adopt budgets with deficits around $2 to $3 million, which usually is made up over the year due to not having 100 percent full-time employment at all times and departments not spending all of their allocated budgets. CISD has used our fund balance to cover budget deficits over the past few years.

CISD Administration presented a deficit of more than $7 million to the Board in August 2020, because of the expenses that needed to be covered at that time.  The district’s fund balance is used to cover the deficit.  When adopting the budget, CISD Trustees asked for the budget process to begin earlier so there could be opportunities to address the deficit.  However, we must recognize that we cannot continue to spend more than our revenue and use our fund balance, so cuts to spending must be made at some point.  For CISD, that point begins now.

When passing the budget in August, CISD Trustees asked that the district begin the Budget Workshop processes earlier so conversations could begin to address the budget deficit. On December 7, CISD hosted a Board Workshop focusing on our budget and specifically our $7 million deficit. You can watch an archive at go.coppellisd.com/BoardMeetingLiveVideo.

No decisions have been made.  We are at the very beginning of discussions at this time. The district’s budget and the budget deficit will be discussed at forthcoming monthly Board Meetings and specific Budget Workshops in the next few months, our Board of Trustees will not vote to adopt the budget until Monday, August 23, 2021.  The schedule of Budget Board Workshops is available at www.coppellisd.com/budgethub. 

CISD is committed to taking care of current employees. Scenarios discussed at the Board Workshop are restructuring positions and programs, not laying off current employees. However, some employees may not be in their current position in the future. The ultimate goal is that all current employees would have the opportunity to fill a similar position within the district.  

The district cannot lay off employees without the Board of Trustees approving a Reduction in Force.

Excluding recapture, 81% of the district’s budget is spent on salaries and benefits for full-time employees. Attrition (not replacing employees if/when they leave) also will help in reducing full-time employees’ costs.

At the December 7 Board Workshop, several ideas to cut the budget were shared with our Board of Trustees. These suggestions were possible solutions to address our deficit. None of these proposals are final, and no decisions have yet been made. 

Programs proposed for possible cuts were based on rightsizing services based on enrollment (GT enrollment reduced by 35 percent over the past five years), cost per student (IB program) or overall cost to provide education (New Tech High @ Coppell).  These are only possible scenarios, and the CISD Board of Trustees asked the district for additional suggestions on cutting the budget.

CISD is evaluating cuts to administrative areas. All departments are being asked to cut 10 percent of their budget expenses, not including employees.

Yes. As shared at the December 7 Budget Workshop, CISD is investigating:

• Expanding Open Enrollment (K-12 within City of Coppell)
• Investigating a Virtual School
• Accepting tuition-based PreK students
• Implementing virtual payment platform for accounts payable
• Investigating employee daycare center
• Investigating district run after school program
• Evaluating Bus Pay to Ride/Pay to Play (Athletics and Fine Arts) fees
• Increasing advertising on district assets
• Increasing grant applications
• Tax Ratification Election
  

CISD has two sources of revenue —  Maintenance and Operations used for the daily operations of the district, including employee salaries, and Debt Services (Interest and Sinking) used to pay for the district’s voter-approved bonds, which includes technology and facilities. Our deficit is in the Maintenance and Operations portion of our budget. We cannot use the Debt Services (Interest and Sinking) funds to cover Maintenance and Operations.

The development of the budget is a year-long process that includes the development of the individual campus and department budgets. Additions of positions or of expenditures are submitted via Additional Funding Requests which are evaluated carefully by the executive leadership team. The district’s budget process includes public board workshops where details of the budget are discussed numerous times prior to the adoption of the budget.

This year, CISD has started those discussions earlier to address the $7 million deficit.

All budget workshop and budget adoption presentations are available on the Financial Transparency webpage at www.coppellisd.com/budget  along with historically adopted budgets, School FIRST reports, annual independent audit reports, monthly financial reports, and other financial information.

The budget is adopted by the function code. Any amendments to the budget are presented and approved by the board at monthly board meetings. 

The district submits its adopted/amended budget and final audited results to the Texas Education Agency on a yearly basis.  The comparison of the budget versus actual results is a measure of the School FIRST (Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas) accountability system. The district is evaluated by the School FIRST (Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas) financial accountability system each year.  Coppell ISD has received the highest rating every year since the School FIRST accountability system was put in place in 1999. 

The district’s financial software system has blocks to keep a user from overspending the budget for their department. The business office evaluates all purchases to ensure that they comply with all federal and state purchasing regulations.

House Bill 3 passed in 2019 changed the school funding formula in the summer of 2019, which changed the projected budgets. The district is adapting future budgets to the updated funding formula and is preparing for any effects of the economic downturn in the near future budgets, but also looking to ensure that the budget can support the long-term strategic direction of the district.