GISD may avoid funding woes

While Gonzales Independent School District is facing cuts in state funding, rising property values thanks to the oil and gas industry in the county may not only ease the financial burdon, it may help the district come out ahead.

Superintendent Dr. Kim Strozier  said the school district can expect to lose $1.3 million in state funding, but rising property values thanks to the Eagle Ford Shale oil and gas exploration that has exploded in Gonzales County this year are expected to make up the difference.

Deputy Superintendent Larry Wehde said in the school board’s JUly 11 meting that the increase in tax revenue from property values could be as high as an additional $400,000.

“Preliminarily, we’re feeling much better about our outlook,” Strozier said.

Strozier also said the school district will have more than 100 additional students over last year’s numbers, which will also warrant additional funding from the state.

“We expect to receive approximately 92¢ of each dollar we got last year,” Strozier said. “This is the target revenue per student.”

More good news, Strozier said, is that the state did not cut any career and technology funding.

“We have more and more students taking those classes, so we were glad to see that funding didn’t get cut,” she said.

Some classes that fall under career and technology funding

include will get cut,” she said.

Some classes that fall under career and technology funding include welding, culinary arts, ag, video production, and business and finance classes.

Strozier said the school district will have more firm numbers at their July 26 budget workshop, but they will still be estimates.

“We won’t have the exact numbers until after Aug. 1,” she said.

Strozier explained that the school district gets a budget template in early summer from Omar Garcia, who previously worked for Region 13.

“We can plug in the numbers and the template will provide a good idea of where we are with the budget,” she said.

Strozier said the district will get a new template whenever there’s new calculations. Normally, they get 15 templates before the budget process is complete.

Strozier said during the July 11 meeting, the school board was informed that of 19 positions within the district where the employees either resigned or retired, only 11 will be replaced.

She explained that not replacing those eight positions is part of the budget cuts the district imposed earlier in the school year when it was first informed that the Texas Lesiglature was going to consider the potentially massive budget cuts.