HUTTO — Hutto Independent School District Superintendent Raúl Peña described the first day of budget planning as a “day of learning.”
Trustees and district staff sat down to begin discussing the 2024-2025 school year budget at a workshop meeting Thursday, April 11.
“My understanding from prior history is Hutto (ISD) has not participated in a discussion regarding a budget workshop like we’d do it today,” Peña said. “How it connects to instruction, how every financial decision ties back to the classroom and have some tangible activities for you to review.”
Peña began the workshop by listing the budget “drivers,” which are certain identified elements and goals he wanted trustees to keep in mind while going through the budget process.
Drivers include optimizing district efficiencies, celebrating growth and ensuring equitable compensation, maintaining financial strength and driving purposeful stewardship.
District officials said since monetary numbers are not finalized yet, no item was voted on during Thursday’s workshop.
After Chief Financial Officer Caleb Steed had trustees perform a mock budget-making exercise, district staff hosted three separate topic-oriented budget workshops.
Steed led the total revenues and fund balance impact workshop.
Brittany Swanson, associate superintendent of instruction and innovation, and Cara Malone, associate superintendent of human resources, led the instructional efficiencies and staffing workshop. Henry Gideon, assistant superintendent of operations, led the new construction and maintenance and operations discussion period. Last June, Hutto ISD trustees passed a budget with a $6.1 million deficit for the current fiscal year.
Steed said the district cannot afford to realize a similar deficit next year if it wants to have enough cash to cover three months of operation costs, which is a common budgeting practice.
“We are good now, we knew that going in,” Steed said. “What we are saying is, if we do this for another year and we change nothing about our practices, we will go below that 90 days of fund balance on hand as we continue to grow expenditures.”
He added that the school district receives most of its money in December and January, but must make the money last until government funding arrives in
September. Board President Billie Logiudice asked trustees to consider how every decision would impact student outcomes and how it aligns with the district’s strategic goals.
Logiudice added that budget decision makers should focus on what they can impact as the conversations continue.
“There’s a lot of things pulling everybody, especially school finance, in so many different directions,” Logiudice said. “We know that there’s challenges that we have no control over. There are decisions being made by other people that are impacting the budget and the finances that we in Hutto ISD are having to deal with.”
