School board votes to send dollars to state

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At last week’s Gonzales Independent School District’s monthly meeting, board members discussed the fate of district dollars as mandated by the state’s school funding equalization scheme..

Under the Chapter 41 requirement that says GISD must use a portion of its revenue to help lower-income schools, the board must select how to meet that revenue sharing requirement. The options that voters approved last year, Option 3 and 4, dictate that GISD either partner with a “poor” school district or send the funds straight to the state by purchasing “attendance credits.”

GISD Superintendent Dr. Kim Strozier explained to the board that they were looking at purchasing attendance credits, where the school sends the money straight to state for them to distribute. Board members did not like this idea, for they wanted more control over how the money was spent; however, this option would be significantly more expensive.

Option 4, which gives GISD the power to partner with another school district of its choosing, would now cost GISD an additional $97,000. Strozier explained that was equal to two full-time teachers’ salaries.

Strozier explained that the district’s plan was to use the early intent bonus reduction for first year—saving nearly $40,000—in 2014-15 payments and selecting Option 4 for future years.  

Since then, the district has learned their regional service center no longer supports the technology consortium they intended to use to meet the revenue sharing requirement — due to the complicated task of reporting and bureaucratic documentation.

In essence, the GISD would have to keep track of its partner school’s financial records, creating a need for additional staff. That didn’t sit well with board members.

District 6 board member Sue Gottwald was dismayed that the state had changed the rules thus making it more complicated and financially impractical to proceed with the option that voters chose. She said that she would love to have a say over where they money went, but spending the $97,000 in order to do so was irresponsible to Gonzales taxpayers.

Strozier said that GISD will have no control on what the state actually does with the dollars by selecting Option 3, but that ultimately it would go to helping another district.

Gottwald made the motion to use Option 3, buying credits from the state, but she made it clear that she did not like any of the options that the board was stuck with. The motion was seconded by District 7 member Tom Lester. The motion passed with District 4 member Josie Smith-Wright and District 5 member Ross Hendershot III voting against.

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