{"id":153533,"date":"2026-02-06T10:20:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/153533\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T10:20:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:20:34","slug":"eanes-isd-to-adjust-staff-ratios-increase-local-revenues-ahead-of-2026-27-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/153533\/","title":{"rendered":"Eanes ISD to adjust staff ratios, increase local revenues ahead of 2026-27 budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor the past several months, Eanes ISD administration has considered various ways to garner $5 million-$6 million in cost savings or revenue generation in order to balance the fiscal year 2026-27 budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The board of trustees unanimously approved an optimization plan Feb. 3, which will include a revenue-generation program and staffing optimization plan to reduce a projected budget shortfall.<\/p>\n

Some context <\/p>\n

At the Jan. 13 board meeting, Chief Financial Officer Chris Scott presented<\/a> four possible budget optimization packages for the board to consider, each with a mix of options that could net millions of dollars in savings or revenue generation.<\/p>\n

These options included local revenue increases, staffing optimization, freezing or reducing salaries, and calling for a voter-approval tax rate election, or VATRE.<\/p>\n

Board documents also state that additional measures will be necessary in order to account for declining enrollment and revenue, account for increasing costs, and rebuild the fund balance.<\/p>\n

The update<\/p>\n

The approved optimization plan includes local revenue increases that could net $600,000 in savings. These increases would be achieved through increasing facility rental usage and fees, creating a virtual academy which would launch this summer, and increasing the number of out-of-district secondary student transfers.<\/p>\n

The projected savings for this option is up $100,000 from the the previous board meeting, which Scott said could come from the increased rental usage and fees.<\/p>\n

“Once we feel like we’ve got $600,000, we’re not stopping,” Scott said. “If we find other revenue generating avenues, we’re going to explore them and take them if we can.”<\/p>\n

The plan also includes staffing optimization, which could net between $3.3 million-$4.5 million savings through a reduction in workforce and attrition.<\/p>\n

According to Molly May, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, for 2026-27 this would include:<\/p>\n

Reducing seven full-time central administration positions through consolidation, reassignment and attrition, saving $455,000 annuallyReduce five full-time campus paraprofessional positions through staffing realignment and role consolidation, saving $325,000 annuallyAdjusting elementary staffing ratios through natural attrition, equivalent to eight full-time positions and saving $520,000 annually. This would create ratios of 1-22 in K-2, 1-23 in third grade, 1-24 in fourth grade and 1-25 in fifth grade.Increasing the enrollment-to-staff divisor at the secondary level to reduce the total number of general education teaching positions, equivalent to 33 full-time positions and saving $2.15 million annually. This would result in larger class sizes and fewer low-enrollment or singleton electives.Eliminating duplicate positions remaining from the Barton Creek-Valley View blend, equivalent to three full-time positions and saving $195,000 annuallyIntegrating librarians into the elementary specials rotation to create a five-day specials rotation with music, art, library and two physical education classes, equivalent to 6.5 positions and saving $422,000 annuallyReducing student support staff across campuses based on need and consolidating services, equivalent to seven full-time positions and saving $455,000 annuallyWhat they’re saying <\/p>\n

Passing a VATRE could net up to $3.8 million in savings, but trustees John Troy and James Spradley both spoke against going forward with an election, with Spradley saying the community should instead look toward a future bond<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I think even putting a VATRE on a ballot kills a bond because it kills trust\u2014because it shows that we would float it out there and see what people think, and I don’t think that’s the right approach,” Spradley said. “I think we need to take that money that we would spend to do this [VATRE] audit, the effort and time that we would spend to get ready for this, and focus that more on getting us ready for a bond, which makes a lot more sense.”<\/p>\n

Looking ahead <\/p>\n

The board could also consider freezing salaries or reducing raises but will not make any decisions on this until the 2026-27 budget process is underway in May, which Scott said will allow administration to provide the board with more information.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the past several months, Eanes ISD administration has considered various ways to garner $5 million-$6 million in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,63482,53613,53607,63476,49565,63475,53608,63481,49568,53606,63480,63478,49564,63484,63477,63479,63483,53611,63473,63474,63472,53612],"class_list":["post-153533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-barton-creek-elementary","tag-chris-scott","tag-eanes-isd-2026-27-budget","tag-eanes-isd-blend","tag-eanes-isd-board-of-trustees","tag-eanes-isd-bond","tag-eanes-isd-budget","tag-eanes-isd-budget-cuts","tag-eanes-isd-budget-deficit","tag-eanes-isd-budget-shortfall","tag-eanes-isd-budget-updates","tag-eanes-isd-facility-rental-fees","tag-eanes-isd-news","tag-eanes-isd-out-of-district-transfers","tag-eanes-isd-staffing","tag-eanes-isd-staffing-ratios","tag-eanes-isd-transfer-students","tag-eanes-isd-vatre","tag-james-spradley","tag-john-troy","tag-molly-may","tag-valley-view-elementary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}