{"id":331163,"date":"2026-06-10T20:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/331163\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T20:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:59:10","slug":"pearland-isd-trustees-anticipate-3-2m-shortfall-for-fy-2026-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/331163\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearland ISD trustees anticipate $3.2M shortfall for FY 2026-27"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPearland ISD anticipates a shortfall of nearly $3.2 million for fiscal year 2026-27, which was approved at the June 9 board of trustees meeting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s new fiscal year begins July 1, meaning the district must approve its budget before June 30, according to district documents.<\/p>\n

The overview<\/p>\n

Trustees approved nearly $235 million in expenses and around $231 million in revenue for FY 2026-27, budget documents show.<\/p>\n

Payroll costs account for 83% of the district’s budget, PISD Superintendent Larry Berger said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

\"chart<\/p>\n

Since the May 12 budget workshop<\/a>, expenditures have increased by nearly $5.8 million, including:<\/p>\n

Nearly $3.8 million increase in payroll$1.5 million in contracted services$320,000 in supplies and materialsHow we got here<\/p>\n

The district appeared to be in a surplus<\/a> during the previous workshop in part due to $2.5 million for the teacher incentive allotment, or TIA. At the May 12 workshop, state revenue was included without the matching payments to staff being fully built into the expenditure side, Berger said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

He added that additional compensation adjustments approved at the May 12 meeting, along with increased inflation and contingency costs, had not yet been reflected into earlier projections.<\/p>\n

By the June 9 meeting, those adjustments had been added into the budget, contributing to the projected shortfall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably poor planning to wait to place that TIA [expense],\u201d Berger said.<\/p>\n

What residents need to know<\/p>\n

The district is also projecting a tax rate of $1.135 for FY 2026-27. This tax rate combines $0.7869 for maintenance and operations, or M&O, which pays for daily operations, and $0.3481 for interest and sinking, or I&S, which pays bond debt, according to budget documents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Based on that rate, a homeowner with a median homestead taxable value of $232,260 would have an estimated annual property tax bill of about $2,636.15, documents show.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"chart<\/p>\n

Also of note<\/p>\n

According to district documents, the district\u2019s budget assumptions include:<\/p>\n

Nearly 20,300 students enrolled95% average daily attendance, or ADA$11.4 billion in taxable property value$140,000 homestead exemptionCurrent enrollment is around 20,600 students with an ADA rate of 95.8%, as previously reported<\/a> by Community Impact.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s long\u2011range forecast shows continued enrollment decline, with projections showing an $11 million drop in state funding by 2030, trustee Sean Murphy said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be logical, as the revenues go down, we are going to have to plan how to get those expenditures to come down, while not impacting the outcome of students,\u201d Berger said.<\/p>\n

The decline reflects a broader regional trend, with several Greater Houston-area districts also declining in enrollment, as previously reported<\/a> by Community Impact.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead<\/p>\n

The district’s projected tax rate may be updated once final certified property values are received by July 25, with trustees scheduled to adopt the tax rate at its Aug. 11 meeting, according to district documents.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pearland ISD anticipates a shortfall of nearly $3.2 million for fiscal year 2026-27, which was approved at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[118399,86042,56,58,57,5734,118396,118397,5735,118398],"class_list":["post-331163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-board-election","tag-candidate-qa","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-pearland-isd","tag-pearland-isd-board-meeting","tag-pearland-isd-board-members","tag-pearland-isd-board-of-trustees","tag-sat-scores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331163","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=331163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}