{"id":314749,"date":"2026-05-30T00:19:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T00:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/314749\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T00:19:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T00:19:29","slug":"el-paso-isd-board-to-consider-job-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/314749\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso ISD Board to consider job cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM<\/a>) \u2014 El Paso Independent School District is considering cutting over 400 jobs. The measure will be discussed in an upcoming school board meeting. That is after Superintendent Dr. Brian Lusk is recommending the board declare financial exigency and implement a savings plan.<\/p>\n

According to the Texas Education Agency<\/a>, financial exigency means \u201cthat the financial resources\u00a0of a school district are insufficient to support its instructional programs or it\u00a0is unable to finance the full compensation of staff for the current or\u00a0next fiscal year.\u201d<\/p>\n

This comes after the district faced a $52.8 million budget deficit, higher than what EPISD initially projected.<\/p>\n

EPISD reviewing projected $52.8M budget deficit; consultant recommends \u2018financial exigency\u2019 <\/a><\/p>\n

The agenda will be brought to the board on Tuesday, June 2. During the meeting, the school board will face a decision to cut 250 campus-level positions and 160 central office jobs.<\/p>\n

According to the agenda item, EPISD officials estimate that cutting over 400 jobs will save the district $28 million in savings a year. If approved, the board will approve cutting nine percent of the district\u2019s workforce, which consists of 4,700 total employees.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Lusk joined KTSM 9 News Anchor Andy Morgan for a one-on-one interview, discussing EPISD\u2019s budget shortfall. In the interview, Lusk said the district would not be cutting positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say that we will not cut positions,\u201d said Lusk. \u201cIf there are vacant positions and it makes sense from a central perspective, we will cut vacant positions. People will not lose their jobs. I want to be clear about that,\u201d he said on May 1.<\/p>\n

EPISD superintendent committed to balanced budget without affecting classroom <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason for the financial exigency declaration is due to a decrease of more than 20 percent in unassigned General Fund balance per student in weighted average daily attendance over the past two years or a projected reduction of 20 percent compared to the current year,\u201d read part of the agenda item.<\/p>\n

Back in April, EPISD approved a $3,000 buyout incentive for senior Central Office staff, aimed at cutting costs.<\/p>\n

EPISD approves $3K buyout for upper-level administrators amid looming budget shortfall <\/a><\/p>\n

The agenda item highlighted that the district plans to adjust and find ways to save money through the following initiatives:<\/p>\n

Contracted services and software review<\/p>\n

Personnel reductions and staffing adjustments<\/p>\n

Department operating budget reductions<\/p>\n

Health savings account (HSA) contribution adjustment<\/p>\n

PEIMS student coding review<\/p>\n

Average Daily Attendance (ADA) initiatives<\/p>\n

District property and auction sales<\/p>\n

One of the items, the HSA contribution adjustment, read that the district will reduce the employer contribution in the high deductible plan, from $1,000 to $500, projected to save EPISD roughly $1.3 million in savings.<\/p>\n

It was noted in the agenda that these figures are preliminary and are subject to change as Human Resources continues \u201cstaffing placements and operational budgets remain under review and evaluation throughout the budget development process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) \u2014 El Paso Independent School District is considering cutting over 400 jobs. The measure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[43986,138,140,139,8695,113110,75394,2810],"class_list":["post-314749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-brian-lusk","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-episd","tag-financial-exigency","tag-school-board-meeting","tag-texas-education-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314749","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=314749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}