June 24, 2022

Austin ISD Board Adopts a $1.68 Billion Budget

The Austin ISD Board of Trustees, at its June 23rd Regular Voting Meeting, approved the adoption of the Fiscal Year 2023 General Fund Budget of $1.68 billion

The Adopted Budget includes a number of investments to support student learning and staff throughout the next year, including:

• $2.5 million related to Campus funding to address the loss of enrollment; within the per-pupil allocation formula, the new Campus Supplemental Allocation, and the new Elementary Multilingual Allocation.
• $1.94 million for additional Physical Education Teacher Assistants as part of the Essential Areas restructuring.
• $21.05 million in compensation related increases; including an increase to the minimum wage to $16 hr. for Classified employees (NIS, IS, AUX paygrades), $1,000 base pay increase for Teachers & Librarians, 2% salary increase (based on mid-point) for Teachers & Librarians, and an increase of the hourly wage to $21/hour for Bus Drivers. This compensation piece does not include the district’s plan for the utilization of ESSER funds related to retention incentives.

The balanced budget includes the district operating with $33.8 million less than the 21-22 school year, a reduction of almost 600 employees, and a compensation increase as mentioned above. The adopted budget also includes an estimated decrease in the overall tax rate by 6.5 cents due to current state funding and property tax relief calculations as a result of an 18 percent growth in overall taxable property values.

The district is estimated to send $845.9 million back to the state in the form of recapture in FY2023 - an increase of $136.5 million from FY2022 adopted budget. The anticipated increase is based on an estimated property tax values growth, as well as the loss of enrollment.

The adopted budget includes $5 million back into reserves, after the use of ESSER fund reimbursements for COVID related expenditures.