{"id":324753,"date":"2026-06-05T22:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/324753\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T22:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T22:53:13","slug":"richardson-isd-approves-20-8-million-shortfall-budget-salary-raises-for-fy-2026-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/324753\/","title":{"rendered":"Richardson ISD approves $20.8 million shortfall budget, salary raises for FY 2026-27"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Richardson ISD board of trustees unanimously approved a $20.8 million deficit budget for fiscal year 2026-27 at the June 4<\/a> meeting.<\/p>\n

The budget includes district-wide raises<\/a> for teachers and staff as well as $25.7 million in budget cuts<\/a> through staff reductions and secondary school schedule changes.<\/p>\n

In addition to the general fund budget, the board also approved budgets for RISD\u2019s debt service fund and child nutrition fund.<\/p>\n

The big picture<\/p>\n

RISD is expecting $403.8 million in revenue and $427.7 million in expenditures in FY 2026-27, as well as $5.85 million in recapture costs, which transfers a portion of local tax revenue to the state.<\/p>\n

\"chart<\/p>\n

The general fund is almost entirely driven by student numbers<\/a>, said David Pate, assistant superintendent of finance and support services. RISD has seen declining enrollment<\/a> since the COVID-19 pandemic, and current projections show further declines of roughly 400 students per year, he said.<\/p>\n

Districts across the state<\/a> are also reporting budget shortfalls and enrollment declines amid limited state support.<\/p>\n

The board is not set to approve a new tax rate until September, but staff estimated a total tax rate of $1.1452, an increase from this year\u2019s rate of $1.1052.<\/p>\n

The tax rate increase comes from the passage of the district\u2019s 2025 bond<\/a>, which will increase the interest and sinking tax rate from $0.35 to $0.39. The maintenance and operations tax rate is expected to remain unchanged at $0.7552.<\/p>\n

Pate said the district anticipates 0% growth in taxable property value for 2026-27.<\/p>\n

Breaking it down<\/p>\n

The budget includes $700,000 in new expenditures, including $200,000 earmarked for a marketing campaign<\/a> aiming to increase enrollment and $273,000 for additional special education teachers and central paraprofessionals. Smaller increases include phone bills, insurance, UIL fees, fine arts supplies and an additional district crossing guard.<\/p>\n

The board also approved a transfer of $9 million to the general fund budget from the district\u2019s local permanent school fund, which Superintendent Tabitha Branum referred to at a previous meeting as a \u201crainy day\u201d fund.<\/p>\n

The local permanent school fund transfer will cover $8.9 million in district-wide raises<\/a> for teachers and staff.<\/p>\n

RISD approved $25.7 million in budget cuts<\/a> for FY 2026-27, primarily through cutting 95 full-time central office and campus support positions and reducing food, travel and non-payroll expenses. The district will also end block scheduling<\/a> at its secondary schools and transition back to a traditional schedule in the 2026-27 school year.<\/p>\n

Even with the budget cuts, RISD will have a $20.8 million shortfall in its general fund budget. The district\u2019s ending fund balance will decline but will remain above the district\u2019s target for the year, Pate said.<\/p>\n

A closer look<\/p>\n

The board also approved the budget for RISD\u2019s child nutrition fund, which covers school breakfast and lunch. The budget includes raises for staff in line with the district-wide compensation plan but no changes to the free and reduced lunch program or to student paid meal prices.<\/p>\n

The district will reduce equipment purchases in FY 2026-27 and is expecting an increase in federal revenue, reducing the program\u2019s shortfall by close to $3 million.<\/p>\n

The board also approved the FY 2026-27 debt service fund budget, which covers the payments the district makes on its bonds.<\/p>\n

The debt service fund is projected to bring in $132.9 million in revenue and have roughly $148.7 million in expenditures, although Pate said he expects the budget to be revised in the fall with a reduced shortfall.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead<\/p>\n

RISD has been working to find efficiencies in the budget for several years, Branum said at a past meeting. The district has reduced expenditures by nearly $42 million in three years, she said, but the cuts have not been enough to right size the budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn August, we\u2019re going to be working to find another $20 million worth of budget reductions so that we can move closer to a balanced budget,\u201d Branum said.<\/p>\n

The board is set to adopt the new tax rate in September.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Richardson ISD board of trustees unanimously approved a $20.8 million deficit budget for fiscal year 2026-27 at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[29062,2050,5521,43748,36096,116140,666,160,162,161,69054,5810,5809,8789,43089],"class_list":["post-324753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-board-of-trustees","tag-budget","tag-compensation","tag-deficit","tag-enrollment-decline","tag-fiscal-year-2026-27","tag-funding","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-raises","tag-richardson-isd","tag-risd","tag-school-board","tag-teacher-pay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324753","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=324753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}