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Bearcat Budget 101, Part 1

Bearcat Budget 101, Part 1

March 4, 2025

Dear Bearcat Community - 

We hope you’re having a great week so far. It definitely feels like early spring and we know many of you are counting the days until Spring Break (3 to be exact!).

Public school finance (and the effect on the Aledo ISD budget) as well as legislative advocacy are two subjects we’ve communicated about extensively over the years. We’ve done social media campaigns on school finance, Facebook Live sessions, videos, letters, and more to try to keep you informed. Today, we wanted to give you an update as the Texas Legislature is in session and you have an opportunity to make your voice heard.

Looking Back
Aledo ISD along with practically every school district in the state of Texas the last two years has had to make difficult budget-related decisions with inflation at an all-time high and minimal adjustments to funding in public school since 2019. In Aledo ISD specifically, the district cut $1.1 million (10% cuts to operations budgets) for the 2023-2024 school year, and $4.5 million in the current 2024-2025 school year with a goal of impacting student learning and experiences as little as possible while still being fiscally responsible with our allocation from the state. This was a very difficult process, and we know as parents, you’re still seeing and feeling the effects of it today on our children and teachers - from class sizes being larger than we’d like to decreased operational funding for programs. We also regret that we have only been able to make one-time payments to our staff the last two years to help soften the blow of historic inflation instead of permanent raises. 

While the impact of these budget cuts have been very difficult, we had no choice in order to maintain the financial health of the district. When we were budget planning last year, we decided not to count on additional funding from the state legislature (which in fact never came). We believe that this proactive approach now allows us to avoid some of the extreme measures that we are hearing about are now necessary (layoffs, programming decreases) in other school districts.

Looking Forward
Without sufficient new funding from the state, our budget issues will persist. A group of us - a few Trustees and Dr. Bohn - were at the capitol two weeks ago to advocate for our children, for you, and for our community. You’ve likely seen in news stories lately where schools are closing, districts are reorganizing departments, and staff members are being laid off. While we are hopeful for some kind of help from the Texas Legislature - whether that be in the form of increased allocations for safety or special education, teacher raises or some other form of public school funding - we are still preparing to continue to find ways to reduce our budget while avoiding anyone having to lose their job due to this crisis. 

What you can do
You have probably heard a number of bills being filed in the Texas Legislature right now - from taxpayer-funded private and home school voucher programs to money for teacher raises and more. Our message to our legislators is to FUND SCHOOLS FIRST! It’s a pretty simple message and one you can share alongside us! 

When we talk with our legislators, we share that the quality and quantity of our teachers and staff are the most important factors in the exceptional experiences our students encounter everyday. These exceptional experiences have an important and transformational impact on our students’ growth. Teacher pay and their work environment (class sizes, extra instructional support for their students, etc.) matter and require additional funding. 

We share the high expectations that you have for the academic and extracurricular programming that we provide for our students, and we need access to maintain funding in order to continue these programs and maintain their high quality into the future. 

Attached is a flyer that provides some actual numbers related to the impact of this funding crisis on Aledo ISD (you can also find this information and more on our website at aledoisd.org/lege). 

We invite you to join us in expressing your thoughts on these subjects to our legislators as they consider bills that affect school funding. Contact information for the state lawmakers that represent Aledo ISD and the Chairs of the House and Senate education committees follows.

Please stay tuned for more ways to have a better understanding of the “why” behind the need for more state funding in Aledo ISD. Thank you for continuing to support your children, our staff, and for being #AllinAledo as a Bearcat!

All In,

Forrest Collins, Board President - fcollins@aledoisd.org
David Lear, Board Vice President - dlear@aledoisd.org
Jennifer Taylor, Board Secretary - jtaylor@aledoisd.org
Jim Scott, Trustee - jscott@aledoisd.org
Jeremy Pruett, Trustee - jpruett@aledoisd.org
Zach Tarrant, Trustee - ztarrant@aledoisd.org
Hoyt Harris, Trustee - hharris@aledoisd.org
Dr. Susan Bohn, Superintendent - sbohn@aledoisd.org