Open enrollment finances

June 3, 2014

There has been some discussion in this blog’s comments lately about the financial aspects of the new open enrollment policy that the El Paso Independent School District has adopted.  The policy allows students residing in neighboring Texas school districts to attend EPISD schools if they complete the enrollment process.

Of the $483 million dollars in revenue that the 2013-2014 EPISD budget projected, 2.19% was to come from federal funding.  State funding was projected at 63.9% of the total and local funding was expected to account for 34.8%.

Texas law provides for the portion that they would pay the old district to be transferred to the new district along with the student.  Federal funds account for only about $10.6 million of the $483 million and are not primarily based upon attendance.  It appears that some federal money would be lost to the old district and the new district might gain some depending upon the student’s situation.

Local funds not transferred

I have not been able to find a provision in our laws that requires the local portion (in the case of EPISD 34.8%) of the revenue to be transferred to the new district.  In fact Texas law goes so far as to make a provision for the receiving school district to charge tuition if they want to.  From the Texas education code:

Sec. 25.038.  TUITION FEE FOR TRANSFER STUDENTS.  The receiving school district may charge a tuition fee to the extent that the district’s actual expenditure per student in average daily attendance, as determined by its board of trustees, exceeds the sum the district benefits from state aid sources as provided by Section 25.037.  However, unless a tuition fee is prescribed and set out in a transfer agreement before its execution by the parties, an increase in tuition charge may not be made for the year of that transfer that exceeds the tuition charge, if any, of the preceding school year.

I hope that one of our readers will let us know if I am wrong here.

Who benefits?

The transfer does not seem to make a financial difference to the parents of the student being transferred.  Since EPISD is operating with a budget deficit it would appear that the EPISD taxpayers will have to make up the missing money.

Are the developers and home builders the beneficiaries of this policy?

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Fireworks at the ball park

June 2, 2014

Tomorrow’s (Tuesday, June 3, 2014) city council meeting promises to be interesting.

A city representative added this item to the agenda after it was first published:

Discussion and action to review the policies related to the use of the baseball luxury box, with discussion to include list of past attendees and schedule of departments using the luxury box.

Luxury Box?

Should the city have it’s own reserved luxury box at the ball park?  My vote is no.

Some might say that the city could use the box effectively when trying to recruit out of town businesses.  Then again some of the civic minded people that have the other luxury boxes could be asked to donate the space when the city needs to impress people from out of town.

Who’s who

Having the box sends the wrong signal to all of us.  If the city representative is successful in learning who has been using the box then we will have further insight into who the privileged ones are in the city.

Appearances

There was a time when government employees considered themselves to be public servants.

Impressions

If the city takes the position tomorrow that the box is used as a reward for the employees then we know what city management thinks of us lowly citizens.  If they say that it is important when trying to recruit businesses, then I have an alternative proposal for them:

Stop the lawsuits.  Do what the city web site asks us to do and “Hire El Paso First”.  Stop hiring out of town lawyers and firms when the talent exists locally.  Become business friendly.

We deserve better

Brutus

11 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Open questions on open enrollment

June 1, 2014

The EPISD decision to embrace open enrollment has some interesting aspects.

Who benefits?

Did our local developers have a hand in the decision?  Having open enrollment means that families can buy houses in new subdivisions that are just outside of the EPISD boundaries and still send their children to EPISD schools.  New houses mean more money for our developers.

Evidently many people believe that our local school districts are not of equal quality and would like to have a new house and still send their children to EPISD.

At what cost?

EPISD is telling us that absorbing the students will not cost the district extra money.  Will the district get reimbursed the same amount per student for the new students as they do for the ones living in the district?

At what point might we hear that we need new bond money to build more facilities because of the new students?

Recruiting

Will the new policy lead to aggressive recruitment of athletic talent from other districts?

Pro business

I don’t know enough about the new policy to decide whether I favor it or not.  I do know that with our temporary board of managers we seem to have a group that is more apt to decide to favor their business cronies financially than they are to take care of our educators.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

How bad is it at EPISD?

May 31, 2014

Spending at the EPISD has come to a stop according to what I am hearing.

Their financial troubles must be more immediate and serious than what we have been told.

District employees tell us that nothing is being bought except by the board.

Stories are circulating about them taking parts from one device to fix another.

Evidently vendors are not being called, even if it is for warranty work.

If it is true that they are doing their own roof work and thus voiding the manufacturer warranties then they are being short sighted to say the least.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

6 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD central office

May 30, 2014

It appears that plans are in place to kick the EPISD central office off of the land that it leased from the city 50 years ago.

Building a new facility will cost us $40 million according to the folks at the district.  Remember that our city’s chief financial officer is on the board of managers.  If she had anything to do with the $40 million estimate I would have to guess that we are in for a bigger shock than that.

I overheard a local businessman talking about this the other day.  He suggested that the district look for buildings in one of our industrial parks that could be remodeled.  Several big operations have closed down in recent years.  They have left big buildings that should  be cheaper to buy and remodel than building a facility from scratch.

Then again the taxpayers should ask the city to leave the district on the land it currently occupies and thus save us the expense.

That probably would get in the way of someone’s plan to profit from the land.

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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