MARFA — Marfa ISD School Board trustees met this week to review a preliminary budget for the upcoming 2024-25 school year. Similar to last year, the district is anticipating adopting a deficit budget of $1 million or more, a situation that has administrators raising the alarm about the long-term financial viability of the district.
Interim Superintendent Arturo Alferez as well as all school board members with the exception of Rene Gonzales were present to hear from Chief Financial Officer Rosela Rivera on the proposed budget for the upcoming school year.
Based on the preliminary certified property values from the Presidio County Appraisal District (PCAD) and a tax rate of .8216, the district is anticipating earning around $5,035,000 in revenue, Rivera explained. But with the district’s expenses, and an estimated $1.7 million recapture payment — funds the district sends to the state because it is considered to have “excess wealth” per student due to the combination of low enrollment and high property values — MISD is likely to be left with an estimated $1,117,000 deficit.
Rivera said recapture payments are “the killer,” leading to the unbalanced budget, and have sharply increased the past few years. By comparison, the district paid $511,000 in recapture for the 2021-22 school year, she said.
When asked by school board members how the recent $530,000 sale of the Blackwell School to the National Parks Foundation would impact their budget, Rivera said the sum was placed into the district’s fund balance, or savings account, so it could gain interest and was not factored into this year’s budget.
In addition to its recapture payment — which local school leaders experiencing similar issues, including those in Alpine and Fort Davis, have lobbied the Legislature to fix, among other funding inequities — Marfa ISD will continue to pay Presidio ISD, a much wealthier district, $48,000 this year to educate children from Redford that attend Presidio but are technically zoned to go to Marfa.
School board members also expressed concern about their quarterly payments to the PCAD increasing. The PCAD’s budget is made up of payments from local taxing entities including the cities, school districts, the hospital district, the Presidio County Underground Water Conservation District and the county.
Last year, MISD made quarterly payments of around $49,000 to the PCAD; this year, its quarterly payments are estimated to increase to around $58,800, according to Chief Appraiser Cynthia Ramirez. Ramirez said the primary reason for the increase is due to staff raises, and particularly a raise for herself due to the increasing difficulty and added responsibilities of her job as a result of new state Legislature requirements. The PCAD is also experiencing an increase in costs on their software, and hired a new valuation consultant, Pritchard and Abbott Inc., she said.
In total, payments from Marfa ISD make up around 36% of the PCAD’s budget, while payments from Presidio ISD make up around 16%, Ramirez said. While that may seem counterintuitive due to the fact that Presidio ISD has a much higher enrollment and larger budget, it is due to the fact that PISD’s jurisdiction is smaller, with fewer parcels of land, and levies less taxes. Marfa simply has more property value, she said.
Marfa ISD’s budget does see some relief in the form of grants from the Marfa Education Foundation, a nonprofit that budgets around $250,000 annually to supplement school district programs, and the fact that the majority of the salary for the school resource officer is covered by a U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant.
Rivera said the district was taking care not to overspend on items, and teachers were pinching pennies when possible and being asked to adjust thermostats to save on energy costs when they leave school for the day. “The staff has been really great this year,” Rivera said. “I mean, they know where we’re at financially, [they] try to not buy as much, and we’re trying to be kind of strict too.”
She said the district should be able to save some money this school year by being completely closed one day of the week (Mondays instead of Fridays) and not running bus routes or using utilities unlike last year where a handful of Fridays saw the campuses operational for Shorthorn Success Days.
Board President Teresa Nuñez said she was worried about having to further deplete the district’s savings account to cover the deficit budget again this year. “We don’t have much more to go, honestly we don’t,” Nuñez said. “I know we can’t continue like this.”
When asked if she had any ideas for how to cut down on expenses, Rivera said they could go line by line and cut a thousand dollars here or there, but the only way to make significant impacts would be to eliminate staff positions. “We’ve talked about where we can make big impacts on the budget, and it’s not something that we want to talk about because when it comes down to it, it’s personnel,” Rivera said.
She said her and Alferez had discussed the possibility of consolidating into one building, and the general trend of enrollment decline was continuing this year. “Our enrollment is dropping, I would be very surprised if we reach 200 this year, and that impacts a lot on the district,” Rivera said. “Our property values are going up, our enrollment’s coming down. If we had more kids, it’d be great.”
Alferez warned that serious talks were coming, especially around this coming December when it’s time to start hiring for the following school year.
Board Vice President Yolanda Jurado asked whether or not the district should consider selling other property it owns but doesn’t utilize around town. Alferez and Rivera said it was a possibility, but many of the lots were oddly shaped and unlikely to sell, like one that wasn’t even large enough to fit a mobile home. School board members agreed it was something to potentially try for, as is the sale of other surplus items.
Board Member Stela Fuentez asked Alferez if he and Rivera were brainstorming other ways to generate more revenue. Board Member Paul Hunt joked that “frisky neighborhoods produce more students, right?” which was met with laughs from the board. Alferez ultimately agreed the issue is about “just increasing students,” he said.
Jurado and Fuentez encouraged Alferez to meet with Fort Davis ISD Superintendent Graydon Hicks, who piloted a new private-public school partnership this year in which dual enrollment earned FDISD $1.5 million in state assistance up from its previous $70,000. Fuentez said Marfa ISD could consider a similar program, perhaps investing in a new administrative position to pursue the partnerships before a potential voucher program gets adopted.
“The simple math shows that it’s worth the investment and time, and who knows how long that will be available? Capitalizing on that now is paramount,” Fuentez said. “I think it’d be worth talking about in greater detail and understanding what that means.”
The board agreed to keep researching and generate ideas on how to save the school district’s ailing budget. “Now is the time to brainstorm,” Nuñez said.