The Austin ISD Board of Trustees adopted a $1.3 billion budget, which supports 130 schools and approximately 83,000 students, at its June 19 meeting. The budget includes funding to maintain current services and modest investment for academic reinvention projects, and a 1.5 percent districtwide pay raise.

Academic reinvention projects aimed at bringing innovative programs to students are funded through an additional $750,000 allocation in the budget. Projects to be funded include Montessori programming, early college high school expansions and a dyslexia school.

“Austin ISD remains committed to providing our students with tools to succeed, both when they’re in AISD schools and beyond,” said Superintendent Paul Cruz. “I am proud to work with our Board of Trustees and staff to adopt fiscally responsible budgets that will continue to support our mission of reinventing the urban school experience.”

The budget is aligned with the district’s strategic plan to:

• Generate, leverage and utilize strategically all resources;
• Acquire necessary resources; and
• Optimize resources, such as buildings, programs and personnel, to ensure they are utilized efficiently and effectively.

The budget includes a 1.5 percent raise for part-time and full-time staff members at a cost of $8.55 million.

“Our financial team worked with a multitude of constraints to build a budget that will ultimately help our students achieve success,” said Chief Financial Officer Nicole Conley. “While we anticipate paying more than $1 billion in recapture payments during the next two years, we will continue to thoughtfully fund programs to support our students and team members in alignment with our district’s values of excellence.”