- Budget woes for LTISD that is already running millions in deficit
- Auditors report
- Course of action
LTISD observer here,
It’s budget time LTISD! In December the LTISD school board began discussion of the upcoming 2026-2027 budget. It was eye opening to say the least. Whoa Nelly. What did I learn? The district needs MORE students. Can you believe it? I thought we had that big beautiful billion-dollar bond because of all the overcrowding. OMG! How are we going to pay for all that? More on that circus act later. To start off, the auditing firm reports, “Documents materially correct and no control deficiencies or material weaknesses.” Sounds GREAT! Are we going to get a good grade? Nah, we learn, in conclusion, that the board must find a way to, “reduce budget deficit to ensure long-term stability.” And that, “the financial health of the district IS at risk!” Hum, I am trying hard not to say it, but we told you so. We the People did not support the bond. LTISD’s projected enrollment was wrong and the estimated $250K (your tax dollars) marketing blitz from the district falsely created a sense of urgency. Lessons learned when LTISD wants your money, they will go all in to get it. Remember the “this won’t change your tax rate” narrative? Yea, the rate won’t change BUT we will just start running budget deficits. Kinda forgot to add that part. Let us never forget that if we don’t turn out to vote on who leads arguably the largest local municipal taxing entity in the Lake Travis area, allowing kooky leftists to run the show then, we get what we didn’t vote for. Spring off cycle elections are a priority because the district is a debt bomb and the fuse has already been lit. We currently run a budget deficit of around 6 MILLION dollars. But don’t worry because the auditing firm assured us that 6 MILLION is considered within the typical range for a school district of our size. Their justification? Everyone else is doing it! Lefties excuse, “Well it’s the Texas State house’s fault and you all should go harangue them not us.” Looking forward, the auditor projects that the budget short falls will increase outside the “safe” range within approximately three years. I got to hand it to the guy who came up with swapping two months out of one fiscal calendar year for another to delay the onset of the debt bomb by a few months. They’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic! Of course, that is IF the board of “educators” can control their pocketbooks and spending levels stay where they are. So, what was proposed to offset the coming debt? Let’s increase enrollment to get more money from the state. Yep, that is what was proposed to fix the overcrowding problem. Open enrollment was an option. The football coach will surely be happy because it makes it WAY easier, like at least we won’t have to hide it, to recruit players from around the city. But I digress. So here is the problem, we have excess space in elementary through middle schools (and we approved two new elementary schools in the bond) but there is no extra space in the high school, and the new high school is years away. The timeline to BEGIN construction has already been pushed back a year or so. Trustees wondered, what should we do? Well let’s just offer our “destination district” to some neighboring districts with the caveat that your student may not be able to go to HIGH SCHOOL in said “destination district.” A lead balloon comes to mind on that one. We have some challenging times ahead for LTISD. The board has some hard decisions to make. If we don’t take issue with the decision makers now then, LTISD homeowners will most certainly be paying higher tax rates later. The next school board election is May 3rd. I will have an update on the election in the next newsletter. Thanks for your attention to this matter.
-Written by Frederic DuPuy with We the People-Lake Travis