MARFA — In the relative quiet of summer break and the conclusion of the most recent legislative session, school boards across Texas are busy tackling their 2025-26 school year budgets, factoring in lawmakers’ changes and discussing district priorities.
At a Marfa ISD School Board meeting on Monday, Chief Financial Officer Rosela Rivera explained to trustees that the state template the district utilizes to generate their budget — a highly-detailed Excel sheet with color-coded cells and seemingly endless tabs — is “always changing” to reflect legislative tweaks.
“There’s so much information that goes into the state template,” Rivera said.
While numbers are subject to change in the coming weeks, one thing was clear: increases to the basic allotment, safety allotment and teacher salary allotments approved by state legislators won’t bring Marfa ISD out of a years-long deficit budget. Even with increased state aid for those initiatives, the district is facing a roughly $708,000 deficit.
“We’re seeing an increase in that state revenue,” Rivera said. “In the end, are we really getting more money? I don’t think that we are. We are going to have to pay these allotments, and they are very specific to what we can use the money for. We can’t just use the money for anything.”
When Rivera asked the board if there was anything different she could do to better-present the dense information at the next budget workshop, board member Rene Gonzales joked, “You can change all that red to black.”
Marfa ISD has adopted a deficit budget of around $1 million for the past two years. This year the district’s “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 — is currently estimated to be $1.3 million, down from last year’s $1.6 million, but Rivera said she expects it to increase. In the past, the district has dipped into its fund balance, or savings account, to cover the deficits. But how much money remains in the dwindling fund balance account has not yet been discussed. (The district was able to stash away around half a million dollars from the sale of the Blackwell School site last year.)
The budget the district is going off of factors in increased homestead exemptions — now up to $140,000 and $200,000 for the elderly and those with disabilities — pending voter approval in November. The district’s tax levy is around $4 million, which, combined with other income, results in $5 million in revenue.
One of the major topics of discussion this week was the immediate implementation of HB 2, a bill that requires raises for classroom teachers and support staff. Districts with 5,000 students or less are required to pay an additional $4,000 for each teacher with three to five years of experience and an additional $8,000 for each teacher with five or more years of experience. Teachers do not have to be certified to qualify for the raises. The state minimum pay has also slightly increased. Rivera explained that Marfa ISD, which was previously paying above the state minimum, will have to update its salary schedule to reflect the new requirements.
Support staff, including counselors, nurses, librarians, teaching assistants, custodians, food service workers and bus drivers are to receive raises based on an annual allotment of $45 per student based on average daily attendance. Interim Superintendent Arturo Alferez said Marfa ISD employs around 20 support staff.
Board member Stela Fuentez asked district administrators for a temperature check on the teacher raises. “What’s been the overall response from teachers about this, is it enough?” she asked. “I feel like it’s great, but it’s not moving the needle for cost of living.”
Alpine ISD’s recent announcement that their board passed a balanced budget and approved “significant” raises — even higher than those imposed by HB 2 — was also brought up. Alpine ISD boosted certified teacher pay by $4,500 for those with less than two years experience, $7,000 for those with three to four years experience and $11,000 for those with five-plus years of experience.
Fuentez asked if the pay increases could prompt Marfa teachers to seek employment in Alpine. Alferez said there are several factors to consider when comparing Alpine’s financial and staffing situations to Marfa’s, including the fact that Alpine has cut staff while Marfa has not.
“You have never come and asked me to cut down on positions,” Alferez said. “When we needed to cut, we never did. Two years ago, last year, when we were at a million dollar deficit, we never did, and that shows a lot. Our teachers know because they asked, ‘Am I on the chopping block? Do I have a job next year?’ I say, ‘As long as I’m here, as long as this administration is here, as long as this board is here, yes.’”
When reached for comment, Alpine ISD Superintendent Michelle Rinehart told The Big Bend Sentinel that the district is able to provide higher raises this year due to several cost-saving measures implemented over the past few years, one of which was “staffing consolidations based on changing enrollment.” Staff have been careful to stay on or under budget, she said, and grants are being aggressively pursued ($740,000 of the district’s personnel costs in the 2025-26 budget will be offset with grant funds, according to Rinehart.)
“Over the past few years, Alpine ISD has practiced fiscal stewardship to live within our means, even while our ‘means’ were significantly underfunded by the state,” Rinehart said. “This leadership, which included thoughtful staffing consolidations and innovative revenue generation strategies, positioned us to increase compensation for all staff above and beyond what HB 2 funded alone.”
Similarly, Marfa ISD is receiving grants and pursuing revenue generating programs, Alferez said. He also reminded board members that budget talks are in their early stages and there’s still time for the board to come up with an attractive offer for staff, preferably one that includes raises for early career teachers not included in the HB 2 allotment.
“We’re getting into the budget talks,” Alferez said. “We can go back to the table and ask, ‘What else can we provide our staff?’”
Dean of Students Linda Ojeda prompted trustees to define what recognition and retention methods they’d like district leaders to pursue. She thanked Marfa Education Foundation (MEF) for their work on teacher stipends and professional development and said administrators were also working hard to honor teachers’ accomplishments, nominating them for awards whenever possible. Ojeda said district leaders have also been in conversation regarding how to jumpstart the Teacher Incentive Allotment program, a state plan that rewards teachers based on performance currently in place in Alpine and Marathon ISDs.
MEF will contribute $335,000 to Marfa ISD’s budget this year — up 79% from last year — to help support 30 different initiatives at the district from Career Technical Education (CTE) and scholarships to music and science programs.
The financial impact of Marfa’s early childhood education partnership program on the budget is not yet clear. In total, the district enrolled 48 kids from early childhood education centers the second semester of the past school year. The payment for that semester — which is split 50/50 with the partner schools — resulted in $233,000 for Marfa ISD. But the payment has not yet been received, and it is likely that it will apply to last year’s budget, not the current budget.
Marfa ISD also contracted with Fort Davis ISD to kick off the program. That agreement involved 10% of the revenue going to FDISD in addition to an upfront fee of $3,000 per partnership for up to five partnerships, and an hourly rate for work performed beyond that.
Alferez traveled to El Paso this week to recruit new centers. But he warned school board members that a bill — SB 2252 — which did not pass during the session, contained a provision that would require 90% of the profit from the partnerships to go to the centers for pre-K students, with only 10% going to the districts. The Legislature is set to meet later this month for a special session, though no education-related items are currently on the agenda.
“I’m not signing any contracts until I know for sure, but I just want to continue visiting those centers and see if we can establish any kind of partnership on that,” Alferez said. “We’re trying to see where we go from here with this bill.”