NEW BISD BUDGET PASSED: NO WORKERS CUTS, NO HIGHER TAXES

By Juan Montoya
Don't look now, but it appears that the Brownsville Independent School District has managed to pass a balanced budget that doesn't constitute an attack on classroom teachers and actually streamlines the top-heavy administration at the Glass Palace and protects the average employee.
And the members of the board of trustees did it without the services of Chief Financial Officer Tony Fuller or slash-and-burn former superintendent Brett Springston, thank you very much.
The superficial news is that the BISD has approved its budget for the coming year.
There are several ways to report this story.
One would be a dry numbers report, basically saying the schools, under interim superintendent Carl Montoya and a united board of trustees, found a way to work with about five percent less money. Late Thursday, the members managed to adopt a balanced $475.3 million budget for the 2011-2012 school year that keeps the current level of pay for all full-time employees, avoids layoffs, and – unlike the previous boards – does not tap into fund balance and leaves the effective tax rate unchanged
In other words, these are relatively good news because it didn’t resort to a tax hike and no one was laid off. And (Dagoberto Barrera will doubtless be very pleased) the tax rate will remain unchanged from the current rate of 1.0191 per $100 of assessed valuation for maintenance and operation and .0732 per $100 for debt service.
But there is a more interesting story there, a narrative of how the budget changed over time, a story that touches on issues that have interested Brownsville residents for some time: the constant fighting on the school board and the use of government agencies to reward the city’s elites.
To tell it, it might be best to begin the story with its surprising conclusion.
The budget didn’t reward the elites. And it was accomplished without the usual battles on the board.
As the the process began, then super Springston and Fuller began by submitting schemes that laid heavy hits on the teachers and the classroom. Larger classes, more classes during the day and reduced pay for the extra duties teachers take on were the largest part of their plan.
And they were ready to flat out cut teacher pay if the legislature approved it. If you put a title on Springston’s and Fuller’s plan, it would have to be, “Speed Up the Assembly Line.”

And not much more than that.
Their plan protected administrators from anything more than a few less work days in the summer.
The bloated bureaucracy in the main office was to be left untouched. Administrators were even eligible for resignation bonuses, even though their positions would not be closed. And, as warped as that plan was, it got worse as time went on.
As news from Austin kept coming in about less and less of a financial hit to the district, Fuller kept moving the goalposts, reporting that the district had to make even more severe cuts. At that point it was clear that the administration was using the budget situation as an excuse to cut classroom costs to fund its aggressive construction agenda.
So what changed?
How did the district end up with up its better budget?
Springston quit, Fuller got himself suspended, and Human Resources director Susan Fox was reassigned.
The three crucial administrators for the budget process had been replaced, and a new direction for the district appeared immediately. Fuller’s budget crunching mathematics were shown to be inaccurate.
Financial targets for the district were brought in line with the legislature’s latest figures. The focus on teachers and the classroom was softened, and, miraculously it would seem, the main office bureaucracy was streamlined through combining some positions.
With the new administrators in place, the board stopped fighting.
For the first time in the year-long process questions from the board to the administrators were answered directly.
Input from the community, employees, and campus administrators was listened to and seriously considered. And, in the end, the resulting budget spread the impact of the state’s cutbacks nearly evenly across the school district.
The attack on the classroom has failed.