As the nation's eleventh largest school district, Dallas Independent School District serves more than 161,500 students who come from homes where 58 different languages are spoken. Operating with a $1 billion dollar budget, DISD employs 18,678 employees including 10,000 teachers in 218 schools.
24 Aug 2001
Moses Commends Board of Trustees For Unanimous Approval of 2001-02 Operating Budget
Budget Includes $38.8 Million for Employee Salaries and Benefits
DALLAS—General Superintendent Mike Moses on Friday expressed appreciation to the Dallas Independent School District's Board of Trustees on their 9-0 approval of the 2001-02 operating budget, and said the budget is largely level-funded from last year's budget, even with an additional $38.8 million for employee salaries and benefits.
In the budget approved by the board Thursday evening, Moses said the General Operating Fund revenues are projected to be $981 million. He said that while last year's adopted budget was for $940 million, when amended, will actually total about $979 million.
"We are grateful to the Board of Trustees for their unanimous approval of the budget," Moses said. "We have worked hard to better manage our tax dollars; and while no budget is perfect, it is a good budget to work with and to use to try to get us where we are going."
The superintendent said the district has had to work through some significant cuts, such as a drop of more than $23 million in state revenue and a lower than anticipated increase in certified appraised values. He said this was offset somewhat by $12 million from the teachers' retirement system and, other local and special revenues.
Moses said that increases in utilities had produced the need for an additional $10.5 million in expenditures.
To offset losses from the cuts in revenues and to impose better budgeting practices, Moses said a series of decreases had been imposed, including a one-time $26.3 million savings for moving the starting date of the 2002 school year back eight days, not filling $15.8 million in positions, a cut of $12.9 million one-time costs, a reduction of almost 60 positions at a savings of $2.3 million, and reduction in funding for CEP of $3.0 million.
NO TAX INCREASE
Moses said that $1.7 million also has been budgeted for debt service on an Oracle/IBM implementation project for much-needed financial software.
Moses also noted the tax rate of 1.48 per $100 of property valuation remained the same as last year's rate. The tax rate necessary to retire district's bonded indebtedness also will remain the same at just over 6 cents per $100 valuation. The total tax rate passed by the board of trustees remains the same as last year's at 1.54.
COMPENSATION
The superintendent said there have been increases in General Operating salaries by $27.3 million which includes a step increase for campus administration, 4 percent across-the-board increase for support employees, 3 percent for employees in pay ranges, 2.5 percent for those employees at the maximum step/range, and the schedule compression from 15 steps to 11 for teachers and professional support employees.
"We feel like we have honored the promise from last year in regard to longevity pay," Moses said. "What we found this year is that there were actually 4,600 people who qualified under the plan from last year when only about 1,500 were included in the budget. This has been a significant challenge to us, but I think we've resolved it for this year, and this year only."
Moses said that DISD is very competitive when it comes to teachers who have a long-term relationship with the district.
"Next year, a teacher at the top of our salary schedule will make about $60,100 for a 187-day contract and that's good that we're rewarding dedicated professionals that have been with us for so long, however, we are lacking in our attractiveness for new teachers, and it is our intention to become much more competitive with beginning salaries so that we can continue to attract the best teachers possible to DISD," Moses said.
HEALTH CARE
The superintendent said the district will be offering a variety of health care options for its personnel at an additional cost of about $2.3 million. Moses said rising health care costs brought about an increase in costs to the district of about 12 percent so that instead of paying $178 per employee per month, the district would be paying $200.
"From what we've observed around the state, this level is still much lower than what other systems have been facing," Moses said. "We're not happy about how much costs have been rising, but 12 percent is much better than 40 or 45 percent, as other districts around the state have been facing."
Moses said the DISD had been able to get a better rate due to efforts to co-op with Houston ISD and negotiate as a team rather than separate entities.
EMERGENCY FUND
Moses expressed the importance of an emergency or "rainy-day" fund that would be used to cover unanticipated costs. He said that in past years the fund has been depleted at the end of each year rather than being rolled over. Moses said $4.5 million would be built into next year's budget and the district would continue under his leadership to build the balance of this fund.
"It's going to take a few years to put money into our emergency fund to get it to where it should be, but we must do as all good money managers and put money away for a rainy day, for emergencies," Moses said. "The taxpayers of Dallas deserve to know that we are trying to prepare in the long-run for unforeseen circumstances. It makes sense, and it's just good public policy."
SPECIAL EDUCATION
Moses said a priority he established when he arrived in January was to ensure that the district complied with state and federal laws regarding special education practices.
"When we began working here this year, we noticed that we were not complying with state and federal law in regard to providing for the needs of our special education students, so we agreed to broaden the responsibilities of a state monitor to include all aspects of special education," Moses said. "Because of this, we also have budgeted $2.0 million in first-year costs for a system to track special education students and ensure they are getting the proper care and education they deserve."
EDISON CONTINGENCY
The superintendent said the district is obligated to a five-year contract with the Edison Project, but he has taken significant steps to reduce the revenues going to the program and called for further accountability measures to be adopted.
"The program was budgeted to receive an additional $1.7 million but we are calling for $1.08 in this year's budget," Moses said. "We have told officials with Edison that a benchmark is being established on their progress for this year, and that we are holding them to a higher standard than in the past. If they measure up next year, we will most likely continue this program, if they are lacking, we will have to give this program an even more serious review next year."