.png)
One of the key action items at the Dripping Springs ISD Board of Trustees meeting on June 23 was an update and vote on the 2025-2026 fiscal budget. It was approved unanimously by a vote of 6-0.
Elaine Cogburn, Deputy Superintendent for Finance and Operations, summarized the budget process that had taken place so far, which started in December 2024. By April, the district had made a lot of headway, but there was still a wild card in play.
“We knew the legislature was meeting this spring, and that was going to be a big influence on our budget,” Cogburn said.
In May, they presented what they thought the most likely final budget would be, but then there was another flurry of legislative updates.
“A lot of things changed from April to May, and then again from May to the session actually ending on June 2,” Cogburn said.
When the dust settled, the Legislature had passed House Bill 2, which provides an additional $8.5 billion in school funding, including money for teacher pay raises. Several other bills affecting school funding also passed.
As a result of those legislative changes, districts across Texas faced a choice to rush to revise their budgets to meet the state deadline, or to adopt their currently proposed budgets and make the necessary amendments later. That’s the path that DSISD opted to take.
“It seems a little weird to adopt a budget just for me to turn around and tell you we're going to amend it, but that's an impact of the legislation that was passed,” Cogburn said. “We are still working through those numbers, getting a final revenue picture and then being able to amend our compensation plan once we know what our real revenues will be.”
Cogburn said it’s important for people to know that the budget being approved is based on old law, and doesn’t include the legislative updates.
“It does not incorporate these changes, and so if employees are out there looking for a compensation plan or what the raise is, stay tuned,” Cogburn said. “There's more to come, but that is not happening this evening.”
Cogburn then went over the impacts of the legislation in detail. She said the district will be working over the summer to address all of the provisions, and expects to bring an amendment to the board in August, along with the compensation plan.
“So that's really the big message with this budget is we're not finished,” Cogburn said. “We'll amend this and implement these salary increases in August. Teachers receive their first new paycheck in September, so we expect to have all of this worked out before teachers receive their paychecks.”
Trustee Kim Cousins thanked Cogburn for her presentation, and said they had just returned from the state conference for the Texas Association of School Boards, where they met with a lot of other trustees facing the same issues.
“About half of them are adopting and trying to throw those raises in quickly, but they're not exactly sure what that's going to look like, and the other half were like, no, our finance department CEOs, CFOs are telling us to hold on, get the fine details,” Cousins said. “I was just glad to hear we were not the only district that was going to kind of hold out and get it right.”
Cogburn ended by thanking the board for their patience on the issue.
“We had to post the summary of our budget by June 12, and the session ended on the second, so to pivot in ten days and really do this right and methodically would have been no less than a disaster,” Cogburn said. “I appreciate y'all giving us the time to breathe and think through this, and make sure that we adopt something that's good for all of our employees and not something that we find mistakes in throughout the year.”
