{"id":5543,"date":"2025-10-15T21:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/5543\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T21:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:32:10","slug":"pearland-isd-scores-a-in-states-financial-integrity-rating-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/5543\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearland ISD scores \u2018A\u2019 in state\u2019s financial integrity rating system"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/houston\/pearland-friendswood-manvel\/education\/2025\/10\/09\/pearland-high-school-band-selected-to-perform-at-macys-thanksgiving-parade-in-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pearland ISD<\/a> scored 95 out of 100 points in its annual Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas, or FIRST, report.<\/p>\n<p>The ratings are based on financial data from fiscal year 2023-24, and were presented to the <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/houston\/pearland-friendswood-manvel\/education\/2025\/09\/10\/pearland-isd-trustees-approve-tax-rate-for-fy-2025-26\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">board of trustees<\/a> at its Oct. 14 meeting.<\/p>\n<p>What you need to know<\/p>\n<p>FIRST began after the 77th Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 218, which required the <a href=\"https:\/\/tea.texas.gov\/finance-and-grants\/financial-compliance\/financial-integrity-rating-system-of-texas-first\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Education Agency<\/a> to form a financial accountability rating system for school districts, and districts to prepare an annual financial management report.<\/p>\n<p>FIRST \u201censures financial accountability and transparency across Texas public schools,\u201d according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/pisd-my.sharepoint.com\/:p:\/g\/personal\/phamt_pearlandisd_org\/ES-YYyAlhAJAgY4t2fK9Q3QBKDAoVL0EEswkg2GzAVwb9g?rtime=fJNuZAsM3kg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PISD presentation<\/a>.\u200b<\/p>\n<p>The rating is based on several factors, including:<\/p>\n<p>Financial solvency through assets and liabilitiesBudgetary practicesDebt managementEfficiency in managing public fundsBy the numbers<\/p>\n<p>The FIRST rating uses 21 indicators, according to district documents. These include whether the district submitted financial documents to the TEA within the required time frame, if the district complied with debt payments by the end of the fiscal year, if cash on hand was sufficient, and whether the current assets and liabilities ratio was sufficient to cover short-term debt.<\/p>\n<p>Out of all indicators, <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/houston\/pearland-friendswood-manvel\/education\/2025\/09\/12\/pearland-isd-trustees-approve-school-health-advisory-council\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PISD<\/a> did not receive full credit for the following:<\/p>\n<p>Indicator 4, which measured if the district made timely payments to the Teachers Retirement System, Texas Workforce Commission, IRS and other government agencies. Superintendent Larry Berger noted the indicator was passed, but due to processing issues with IRS payments, full credit was not received.Indicator 8 measures whether the ratio of current assets to current liabilities can cover short-term debt. PISD scored an 8\/10.Quote of note<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis achievement highlights our district\u2019s ongoing commitment to responsible fiscal oversight,\u201d Berger said in an Oct. 10 news release. \u201cWe are dedicated to ensuring that every dollar is spent wisely in support of our students, staff and community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pearland ISD scored 95 out of 100 points in its annual Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas, or&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5734,5735,5738,5737,5739,5736,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-5543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-pearland-isd","tag-pearland-isd-board-of-trustees","tag-pearland-isd-financial-accountability","tag-pearland-isd-first-ratings","tag-pearland-isd-october-board-meeting","tag-pearland-isd-school-board","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5543","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=5543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}