{"id":350945,"date":"2026-06-26T03:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T03:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/350945\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T03:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T03:25:10","slug":"eanes-isd-adopts-2026-27-budget-postpones-raises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/350945\/","title":{"rendered":"Eanes ISD adopts 2026-27 budget, postpones raises"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEanes ISD is projected to head into the 2026-27 fiscal year with a financial surplus, following the board of trustees’ adoption of the budget<\/a> June 23.<\/p>\n

By the numbers<\/p>\n

EISD’s new Chief Financial Officer Pete Pape provided three budget scenarios tied to possible compensation plans:<\/p>\n

Option 1: no compensation increase, resulting in a projected budget surplus of $1,579,858Option 2: a one-time payment of $700 for eligible employees, resulting in a projected budget surplus of $855,858Option 3: a 2% compensation increase, resulting in a projected budget shortfall of $54,297The board ultimately voted 5-2 for Option 1, with trustees James Spradley and Kelly Marwill casting the dissenting votes.<\/p>\n

Under Option 1, EISD’s general fund budget is projected to have $169.2 million in revenues and $167.6 million in expenditures, resulting in the nearly $1.6 million surplus.<\/p>\n

The debt service budget is projected to have $25.5 million in revenues and $24.8 million in expenditures for a surplus of $676,762. The child nutrition fund is projected to have $5.42 million in revenues and $5.31 million in expenditures for a surplus of $110,203.<\/p>\n

Pape said there was $1.5 million in revenues baked into the budget for the sale of a piece of district land, which has not yet been finalized.<\/p>\n

The vote for Option 1 included removing the land sale revenues for a surplus of about $80,000. Trustee John Troy said waiting to provide a one-time payment would ensure that the budget doesn’t inadvertently dip into a shortfall, since it is relying on the land sale, which should be finalized later this year.<\/p>\n

However, Spradley and Marwill both expressed not wanting to adopt a budget without a staff increase.<\/p>\n

“We were elected to make tough decisions,” Spradley said. “This is one of those cases. I get it that there’s $1.5 million in there that we don’t know about, but there are a thousand things in that budget we don’t know about. There’s a thousand things that are unknown at this point.”<\/p>\n

Another detail <\/p>\n

In April<\/a>, the board discussed holding off on implementing staff raises until later in the year to keep a cushion in the fund balance.<\/p>\n

Under Option 1, EISD’s fund balance is projected to be 25.7% in 2026-27, just slightly above its 25% target. However, the balance would still dip to 23.6% in 2027-28 and 19.8% in 2028-29.<\/p>\n

“Staff also wants stability,” Troy said. “They want to know, ‘Do I have a job? Am I at risk of getting cut?’ It’s not just raises. … When you eat into the fund balance, you put their very employment at risk. … The way to best serve staff at this time is to not give the raise. … I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it helps bring stability to an employer, and it helps ensure that we can then do more this coming year.”<\/p>\n

What else? <\/p>\n

The board will adopt the tax rate later this summer once the district receives the certified values from the appraisal district. The projected rate is $0.8322 per $100 valuation.<\/p>\n

Pape added that the Texas Legislature will reconvene for a new session in 2027, which could potentially bring an opportunity for additional state funding.<\/p>\n

The board also postponed voting on a compensation plan until the Aug. 18 meeting, when it will consider a one-time payment for eligible staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eanes ISD is projected to head into the 2026-27 fiscal year with a financial surplus, following the board…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,122373,134,133,53607,49565,125068,125064,125037,125075,125043,125069,125039,125070,125048,125071,125063,125067,125054,125041,125060,125046,125072,125058,53609,125066,125059,125056,125050,125038,125055,125042,125049,125062,125061,125057,125040,125047,125045,125052,125051,125053,125044,125065,125074,122512,125073],"class_list":["post-350945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-area-school-district-budget","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-eanes-isd-2026-27-budget","tag-eanes-isd-board-of-trustees","tag-eanes-isd-budget-meeting-june-2026","tag-eanes-isd-budget-projections","tag-eanes-isd-budget-surplus","tag-eanes-isd-budget-surplus-forecast","tag-eanes-isd-cfo-pete-pape","tag-eanes-isd-compensation-increase","tag-eanes-isd-compensation-plan","tag-eanes-isd-employee-payment-proposal","tag-eanes-isd-financial-outlook","tag-eanes-isd-financial-stability","tag-eanes-isd-fiscal-year-2026-27","tag-eanes-isd-fund-balance-target","tag-eanes-isd-land-sale-revenue","tag-eanes-isd-one-time-payment","tag-eanes-isd-property-tax-rate","tag-eanes-isd-revenues-and-expenditures","tag-eanes-isd-school-board-news","tag-eanes-isd-school-finance","tag-eanes-isd-staff-raises","tag-eanes-isd-state-funding","tag-eanes-isd-tax-rate","tag-eanes-isd-teacher-pay","tag-eanes-isd-trustees","tag-eisd-budget-adoption","tag-eisd-budget-shortfall","tag-eisd-budget-surplus-2026","tag-eisd-budget-vote","tag-eisd-child-nutrition-fund","tag-eisd-debt-service-budget","tag-eisd-employee-bonus","tag-eisd-employee-compensation","tag-eisd-fund-balance","tag-eisd-general-fund-budget","tag-james-spradley-eanes-isd","tag-john-troy-eanes-isd","tag-kelly-marwill-eanes-isd","tag-pete-pape-eanes-isd","tag-texas-education-funding","tag-texas-legislature-school-funding","tag-texas-school-district-budget","tag-westlake-area-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350945","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=350945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}