Reprint from the Progress Times - August 17, 2007
©Progress Times 2007 - All Rights Reserved

SISD budget and enrollment growing

Sharyland Independent School District is projecting a total enrollment of 8,790 students for the coming 2007-2008 school year. However, the 6.25 percent growth over last year is being outpaced by budget growth.

The total projected revenue budget for SISD for the coming year currently stands at $73.6 million. This represents a 12.7 percent increase over last year’s revenue of $65.3 million. Although the revenue comparison shows a drastic change, the district’s expenditures reflect the change. Last year’s expenditures were approximately $64.9 million while this year’s are being projected at $72.7 million. Both the revenue and the expenditure variances are hovering around the 12 percent range.

Although the budget is showing a rather marked increase, SISD has lowered its tax rate. This year the tax rate is sitting at $1.1850 while last year’s was $1.545. In fact, this year’s rate is the lowest it’s been since 2002.

According to Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Jesse Muniz, the budget increase has everything to do with property values which have risen dramatically in the last six years. In the 2001-2002 school year, the property appraisal value of the district was $763 million

"Property values were estimated at $2.1 billion what is almost 400 million more on the tax role than we predicted last year," said Muniz. "Many people think we are taxing them to death but we don’t have any control in appraisal values, that’s set by the state and the county. We control the tax rate, which has actually dropped."

Also included in the budget increases is a $2,000 teacher’s salary increase mandated by the state.

"We made the commitment early in June to put the numbers together so our principals could tell the teachers being hired at the time what they would be making," said Muniz.