Advocacy Update

11/18/2024 8:28 am

The HISD Board of Managers will have two meetings in January:  its regular monthly meeting on January 16 and a budget workshop on January 28.  The budget workshop kicks off the process of determining the budget for the 2025-26 school year.  

The budget workshop will be particularly important, because at December’s Board meeting HISD revealed a larger-than-predicted enrollment decline and passed a budget amendment that increased the 2025-25 budget deficit by $125 million.  Longtime Houston education reporter Jacob Carpenter noted that increasing the budget deficit by such a large amount is newsworthy because “[o]ver the past five years, HISD has never added anything close to $125 million to its projected deficit mid-year.  Only once during that time has a budget amendment added more than $15 million to the deficit.”  Several media outlets reported more fully on the enrollment and budget issues:

Houston Chronicle:  Houston ISD will spend $125.5M more than planned this fiscal year, despite enrollment declines

Houston Landing:  HISD now projecting a $250 million budget deficit.  Here’s what to know.

Houston Public Media:  Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles says ‘criticism’ likely contributed to enrollment decline