College Station schools facing further cuts pending lawsuits

Budget cuts, a likely tax increase, a present that will have to be regifted and a financial system headed to the courtroom: These are just a few of the challenges College Station school district administrators are facing as they prepare for 2012-13.

One of the most difficult questions facing school districts across the state is whether legal actions targeting the state's current system of school finance will alter education funding methods. And if so, when?

"As we look at making budget reductions, [our system] can be dismantled. So how do we keep it from being dismantled?" said Superintendent Eddie Coulson.

The district has joined a lawsuit filed against the state by the Houston firm of Thompson and Horton seeking to force changes in the funding system.

If a change isn't forthcoming, Coulson said, College Station and districts across Texas will continue to cut services for students.

Coulson said the district is expecting to reduce its operations funding by $1.8 million in the upcoming budget to cover a projected $4.7 million deficit. He said administrators are still working out specifics, but a large part of the district's costs are for personnel.

"We don't anticipate having to lay anyone off," he said. "We anticipate being able to handle whatever reductions we do go through by attrition like we did last year."

The district is also considering having high school teachers teach six out of seven classes a day instead of five, a move that has already been made at the middle and intermediate school level. Coulson said the district is also looking to cut $250,000 from the central office budget.

"The reality is the budgets are generally not very large," Coulson said. "It's hard to cut a lot of money from budgets that are not very large."

Glynn Walker, deputy superintendent for human resources and business services, said the district may have a way to offset the anticipated tax increase by using funds from its savings account, he said.

For the past six years, the district has planned to raise taxes by 4 cents for its second high school. College Station High School will open in August 2012 with freshmen and sophomores and a grade will be added each year until full implementation in August 2014.

The district's tax rate has not increased in the past five years and state law permits ISDs to increase their tax rates to $1.04 without voter approval. The increase would generate about $2.5 million.

Depending on property values for next year, the district may be able to reduce its debt services rate by more than 4 cents, thus ensuring taxpayers aren't paying more despite the increase on the operations side of the budget, Walker said.

That decision won't be able to be made until property values are released in late July, he said.

One pleasant surprise that the district was counting on probably won't materialize.

In November, the city of College Station opted not to build a water feature at Wolf Pen Creek Park after discovering the tax increment financing district for the area had expired. The city planned to give back to the district $1.2 million that was collected from College Station school district taxpayers.

But Coulson said he's losing confidence that the district will be able to keep the TIF money.

As a result of Texas' "broken" public school funding formula, Coulson said, the district would wind up sending all of the money to the state.

Coulson said the district has been working with city officials and school finance attorneys from the Austin firm of Moak, Casey and Associates to determine if the district can keep the money. He said they've discussed a number of options, including having the city credit the district on normal business transactions, such as utilities.

"As we are pushing and pulling on it terms of how we might move forward, none seem like viable options based on the feedback we're getting," the superintendent said.