Tomball Independent School District Superintendent John Neubauer sat down with members of the media for a discussion regarding the districts budget on Aug. 25. Neubauer explained the process in deciding how to trim more than $5 million, which the district found itself short after the legislative session ended earlier this year.

“Together (Neubauer and Tomball ISD Chief Financial Officer Jim Ross) we realized three to four years ago that the state would be short,” Neubauer said. “We started looking where we could cut.”

In March of 2010 the district put aside $8 million dollars and designated it strictly for what Neubauer called “financial stability.” Neubauer said there was no specific formula in coming up with that amount.

“It was our best guess,” he said.

“We’ve planned for a long time for the situation we are in,” Ross added.

Neubauer explained that while the district was able to achieve cuts without laying off teachers and staff, the process was cumbersome.

“I made a decision that when other districts were announcing (staff) cuts to announce to our staff that we wouldn’t have any,” Neubauer said. “So, that meant we had to do some belt tightening.”

Some of that tightening came in the form of class sizes. Neubauer explained that the district used to always look to add a new teacher in grades Kindergarten through second when class sizes got above a 23-student to one teacher ratio. With belt tightening, the district may lose that ability.

Other cuts came in the form of slashing materials and supplies by 10 percent and a salary freeze district-wide.

New school brings new challenges

Another concern was the addition of a new high school, Tomball Memorial. Currently the school houses only freshmen at sophomores at the campus, however, the next two school years will bring the addition of a grade level which will require more money.

“Anytime you open up a new building it costs money,” Neubauer said, “but a high school with 360,000-square-feet is a big burden.”

Neubauer informed that the district decided to set aside another $8 million in January 2011 for the purpose of offsetting the costs of opening up Tomball Memorial and other campuses.

“It cost $6.5 million to open Tomball Memorial,” Neubauer said. “But we had a reduction at Tomball High School of $3.1 million.”

Much of the reduction at Tomball High was through teacher transfers, as the district sent 48 teachers to Tomball Memorial, while only hiring 12 new teachers to the district.

“Each year it will cost additional funds for (Tomball Memorial) because we will be adding new students until both campuses are grades 9-12,” he said.

Future budget concerns

While Neubauer and Ross know already that there will be a $7.2 million loss for the 2012-13 school year, and have already prepared for it, a concern is what the Texas legislature will do in the next biennium.

Neubauer said he expects that by the time legislators head to Austin in 2013, shortfalls will be at least $18 billion statewide.

“We can plan, but we don’t know what they will do,” he said. “We are guessing at best.”

Asking voters for a tax increase isn’t on the table at the moment, Neubauer said.

“We have the lowest (operating) rate in Harris County and our debt service rate has held for four years in a row,” Neubauer said. “We don’t anticipate it going up.”

Neubauer said the goal will once again be to not have to cut student services.

“We don’t want in any way to cut services and programs to kids,” he said. “Whether we do more belt tightening or go into our reserves is the decision we will have to make.”

“I’m also a taxpayer,” he added “I only look at spending our dollars wisely and maintaining financial responsibility.”

Email raises ire of state school board member

Before the roundtable with the media, Neubauer sent an email addressed to parents within the district. The email linked state cuts in education funding with a newly rolled out program designed to allow districts to purchase their own textbooks, rather than the state purchasing what it deems appropriate.

“Due to state legislative cutbacks in education for the 2011-2012 school year, school districts across the state of Texas must now purchase textbooks for their students,” the email stated.

David Bradley, a member of the Texas State School Board, contacted the Tribune in a sharply worded response to Neubauer’s email.

“This superintendent, (and I suspect others) are misleading their parents on legislative actions and school funding,” Bradley wrote.

Bradley explained that he believes the cutbacks had no impact on textbooks.

Bradley said that Senate Bill 6 was written to allow districts to choose what textbooks they want and they will be given an allotment of funds to purchase them, rather than the state buying them directly.

“The state still provides funding for textbooks,” Bradley said. “$900 million is being provided to districts with this new system and it’s a completely separate allotment (from the normal school funding formula).”

“(Neubauer’s email) takes the reader to a misleading conclusion,” Bradley stated. “I don’t know what his motive is other than politics.”

Neubauer said he was merely informing parents of the change in the process and why new textbooks had not yet arrived.

“Due to ongoing discussions in the legislative session that extended into a special session regarding public education funding, TEA (Texas Education Agency) blocked the ordering of textbooks until Aug. 8,” Neubauer responded. “Textbooks are usually ordered in the spring and are received during the summer. The reason TEA delayed the ordering of textbooks was the anticipated change by the legislature in public education funding.”

“As a result, the process to order textbooks changed, which was indicated in our letter to parents.”

Photo by Caleb Harris

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