McAllen ISD: Working to balance budget while state holds on to billions
Not long after McAllen ISD hired long-tenured Superintendent Dr. René Gutiérrez, EdD, last November to lead the district, he ran smack dab into his fair share of detractors as he worked with the board to find a way to balance the district’s $20 million budget deficit spread out over two years.
It was, however, a given — no matter how the district balanced the budget, not everyone was going to be happy when everything was said and done.
How does that old saying go?
“You can please some of the people all of the time; you can please all of the people some of the time; but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Meanwhile, to make matters more challenging for public school districts like McAllen ISD, they must now do the same job as in years prior, only with less money coming from the state to fund their respective budgets.
So how do school districts cope with less money, today’s higher cost of doing business, thanks to high inflation, and other challenges?
Suffice it to say, the task is no easy challenge, and navigating a depleted budget, no easy task.
Gutierréz, by the way, is the first McAllen superintendent to have actually graduated from McAllen ISD in 1983.
A move he describes as “a dream come true.”
Rather than finish this story in a narrative fashion, we’ll switch to a Q&A format to highlight the issues that have created the most friction between some teachers and administrators with the passage of the new school budget that was inked this past June with a 5-2 board vote (Crane Aliseda and Elizabeth Kittleman in the minority).
First, though, for the purpose of background info, for those who already don’t know his personal story, René Gutiérrez is a life-long educator who served as a superintendent for Edinburg CISD for 10 years before taking over as superintendent for Brownsville ISD in 2019. He led both of those districts to become state “A” rated districts in the Texas Accountability System.
He has twice been named the Region One Superintendent of the Year, winning in 2012 while in Edinburg, and then in 2023 while still overseeing Brownsville ISD.
All told, he brings 36 years of experience to McAllen ISD.
Gutiérrez earned his Masters of Education Degree at UT Pan American in 1992, and then 16 years later, his doctoral degree in Educational Leadership from the same university.
No slouch when it comes to teaching STEM, he began his career in education as a math teacher in La Joya ISD in 1987 at the relatively young age of 22.
Other positions he has held throughout the course of his career include high school counselor, school facilitator, Migrant Coordinator, Director of State and Federal Programs, Elementary Principal and Assistant Superintendent for Administration and Finance. (Source: McAllen ISD.)
The 2024 Interview
Advance News Journal (ANJ): For starters, going into next year’s budget, what was considered to be, in your mind, McAllen ISD’s biggest challenge?
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “For starters, school finance has been challenging for most of the school districts throughout the state of Texas because the state has not adjusted the funding formulas to increase our revenues since about four or five years ago. Say, 2019. Meanwhile, as we all know, inflation has gone up.
“In fact, since we came out of the pandemic, the legislature and the governor have not released any additional revenues or additional funding to help school districts keep up with rising inflation. It’s just as basic as that. In other words, how do you do the same with less money?”
ANJ: With regard to the rate of inflation, some might go so far as to say they’ve never seen anything like it, at least over the past 40 years.
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “Correct.
“And so, that has been the challenge throughout the state of Texas, and McAllen ISD is no different. No doubt, we’ve had our challenges with our finances. We did have the federal assistance, the ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) funds, but those are running out already.
“This September, we will complete the three years of ESSER funding that helped us during the pandemic and after the pandemic. But like I mentioned, those funds are going. They’re running out, and we’re not getting additional money from the state to make up the difference.
“So that’s where the real challenge is — how can we sustain everything that we have as a school district for this coming year?”
ANJ: The issue of school vouchers is in the news a lot. We know that Gov. (Greg) Abbott wants it passed during next year’s legislative session. Some have said that he is holding back school monies already owed the public school districts as a form of political leverage. Can you speak to that for a moment without getting into the partisan angle?
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “Sure, there is $4 billion — that’s billion with a capital 'B' — that is on hold because the governor hasn’t released any additional funding to school districts because of the vouchers.
“So yes, that’s one reason public school districts across the state are challenged because we had to come up with a budget for the coming school year without any additional funding from the state because that $4 billion is on hold. It’s just sitting up there in Austin, and school districts have no access to it.
“But yet, we still have to approve a budget by law. For McAllen ISD, we had to approve one this year by June 30th.
“So that’s what the district was challenged with. We had to make this new budget work with the limited funding that we have now, not what we hope to get in the future, because, well, you can’t work up a budget based on the unknown.”
ANJ: So McAllen ISD, its administrators and board trustees, worked up a new budget for the upcoming school year, and not everyone was happy. For that, you caught some flak. Can you speak about that for a minute?
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “We had a couple of things in mind.
“We knew that we were coming into this new budget-planning process with a deficit for the 2024/2025 school year. And we were challenged with that, because we had to look at everything that we have in our district, and we had to make some cuts and reductions wherever we could save money.
“We had three goals starting out. “Our first goal — we wanted to sustain all the programs and services already in place for our kids. That was priority number one. Priority number two? No one was going to lose their job. We didn’t want to hurt families financially by laying off employees. We were going to keep all of our employees.
“Then the third goal that we had, was that we could give a raise to all our employees to help combat inflation that everyone is feeling at this point in time.”
ANJ: As with anything, though, not everyone was happy with how the final budget was planned.
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “True, there were some detractors. One’s critics are often the most vocal, but that doesn’t mean they comprise the majority. While I respect everyone’s right to speak out, and even listen with respect to what they have to say, obviously I don’t always agree with their comments.
“To accomplish those three goals, which we did, it’s true, we had to make some sacrifices. We had to make some changes in the way we operate our school district, and those are the things that we did.
“We had to look at personnel, and where some personnel resigned or they retired, we felt that those positions did not need to be filled, so we didn’t fill them. We consolidated them with someone else picking up those responsibilities.
“We looked at expenses from software programs, from things that we buy for our maintenance and operations, and we started looking at areas that we could do without and cut. And we did that, too.
“Then we also looked at our planning periods. We’re very supportive of planning periods, but it’s very expensive to carry on for this coming year because we couldn’t afford it.”
ANJ: With regard to the new budget, 2024/2025, what shortfall amount was the district facing?
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “The budget deficit for this past year, the '23-'24 school year, was about $6 to $7 million. So, we, and by we, I’m obviously including the board of trustees, had to take care of that deficit when I started at McAllen ISD last November. The district was already operating in a deficit budget of about $6 to $7 million. So we had to start finding ways to save money as early as late last year, moving into early 2024, so that we could make up that deficit.
“And then, planning for the '24-'25 budget year, we were $14 million in the deficit. Our projections were for an additional $14 million less in the bank, so to speak.
“Meaning if you add the '23-'24 school year, with that $6 million budget deficit, and then you look at the '24'25 school year with an additional $14 million budget deficit, you’re looking at a $20 million deficit over a two-year span. That is out of a total budget of approximately $260 million.”
ANJ: So no matter how you cut it, you’re talking about a lot of money in relative terms?
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “McAllen ISD made up the $6 million deficit for the operating budget of the '23-'24 school year, and then we had to figure out how to make up the $14 million deficit that we were about to start for this coming year, the '24-'25 school year.
“To help accomplish that, we had about seven budget workshops with the board. We met with committees in the district, representation of campuses, administrators, department administrators, central office administrators, the board. We looked at everything where we could do a cost savings for this coming year.
“I’m proud of our staff and our board because it was a lot of work. Everyone knew that there was a sense of urgency, that we needed to fix our budget and be able to have a budget for this coming year. There is a hard deadline to the budget process and finalizing it.”
ANJ: So with the necessary changes, you knew there was going to be some pushback from this. No one likes change. Were you surprised by the degree of pushback? Some teachers saying, they’ve never seen the district this bad before; that sort of thing?
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “Yeah, I was surprised because we were trying to be as informative and as transparent as we could be. Everyone who follows the news has to know that these are difficult times for school districts, and it’s not just McAllen ISD, but most of the districts in the state of Texas are working to make up financial shortfalls. It’s been highly publicized.
“We have been very, very transparent. We have been very informative. We had about seven budget workshops. We were very informative so that everyone could and would understand that we’re in a financial crisis and that some changes needed to be made.”
ANJ: Still, not everyone was on board. With so many social media platforms these days, it’s much easier for people to shout, and there seemed to be a lot of shouting going on.
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “It was disappointing to hear some people still criticizing the process and criticizing the things we were trying to do, sure; while in fact, we were doing our best to try and take care of everyone who still wanted to work.
“We, the administration and the board, were also, obviously, trying to take care of our kids. We were trying to take care of our staff, and we were trying to give everyone a raise.
“So, it was disappointing that some people, regardless of how informative we were, how transparent we were with a budget-planning process, knowing that we were facing a budget deficit, still felt the need to be very critical of the district, despite their right to free speech.
“I found it somewhat ironic that some, and I still maintain that they constitute a minority, but some were pretty much attacking our budget plans, when all we were trying to do was help everyone with the limited funds that we had at our disposal.
“I mean, how do you create money out of thin air?”
ANJ: Out of curiosity, the people who were criticizing you, and we say you because it seemed like most of the arrows were pointed at you, since you’re the superintendent, but did any of your critics come up with alternative ways of saving money to make up for the budget deficit?
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “No, and we welcomed everyone to the budget-planning table, so to speak.
“I mean, people could come and see me, could come and talk to me if they wanted to, if they had any better ideas.
“But no, I think it was just about criticizing the process. And it was a few, by the way. This is not a reflection of the majority of the McAllen ISD family. The criticism was only coming from a few people who were very critical, and it was disappointing.
“They are not, however, a reflection of the majority of the McAllen ISD family and the community because I felt that, majority wise, there was an understanding of what we were going through.
“It was challenging, to be sure, but I’m very proud that we reduced the $14 million deficit. With all of our budget planning and processes that we did and the cuts, we were able to reduce the budget deficit to practically zero.
“The only deficit that we have now is because we gave salary increases to our employees, which they deserve because inflation has gone up tremendously, and we needed to continue compensating them because of the hard work that they do on a daily basis for our district and for our kids.”
ANJ: Finally, let’s address the elephant in the room. Namely, the teachers who have complained that the extra planning period they had has been cut for the coming school year, and not only that, but their student load is now going to be heavier. If they had a student load last year of 170 or 180 students, now they’re going to have 200 students.
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “At McAllen ISD, for all the teachers in secondary, and I’m talking about middle school and high school, they did have an additional planning period. That’s what was cut because the district simply couldn’t afford it anymore.
“They are all, however, going to keep their conference period. By law, they have to keep it.
“But prior to this new budget, in addition to that conference period, they were given the planning period, but this was only for the middle school and high school teachers. The elementary teachers don’t have an additional planning period. So there was kind of an imbalance there. And that was costing McAllen ISD a lot of money in the secondary because there was that additional period that cost money to have.
“I’m very supportive of teachers having an additional planning period, but it was no longer affordable. The money was no longer there, and some teachers just couldn’t understand that we don’t have additional monies from the state.
“For about four or five years now, we have not been given additional funding from the state. We are still working with all funding formulas, but the cost of living has gone up. And services have gone up. Everything has increased. Salaries have gone up. And so there was an imbalance there, too, that secondary teachers had an additional planning period that was costing us a lot of money, but elementary teachers did not have that additional planning period.
“So now, we’re balanced. It’s now full equity across the board. They have a conference period in elementary, middle school, and high school.
“Also, the middle school and high school teachers who teach the STAAR and EOC (end-of-course) state assessments will still retain their planning periods (the extra period lost to some) due to the state accountability system responsibility.”
ANJ: This has proven to be one of our longer interviews. Final thoughts?
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “During this budget process, we kept looking at what’s in the best interest for everyone. That’s how I was thinking all along. As we were working through the budget process, trying to meet the June deadline, we wanted to make sure that our kid programs and services were going to continue because our kids are our number-one priority. They’re our number-one customer; and then we wanted to make sure that we didn’t lay off anyone. We don’t want to hurt families financially.
“In the end, this administration, this board finalized the plan that we were setting out to do from the beginning.
“We were going to keep all our employees employed, and we did that. Then we found the money to pay for the salary increases, and they were good salary increases, so we accomplished that, too.
“So all in all, as challenging of a budget process as this was, we accomplished our goals, and we’re looking forward to this coming year to make it better than ever.
“Meanwhile, we will continue to push the legislature and the governor to release the money that they have on hold because that’s what’s hurting us, and other school districts, a lot. Because of the push for vouchers, the $4 billion (approximately) just sits there.”
ANJ: Last but not least, of all the negative rhetoric tossed around over the McAllen ISD budget process, can you point to two or three things that were patently false?
Dr. René Gutiérrez: “That we were not going to save money by eliminating the additional planning period, and that somehow, people didn’t think that we were in a deficit, that there is not a budget shortfall in most school districts.
“And I’m thinking, ‘What is it that I need to do or say to convince our detractors that there is a cost savings by eliminating the additional planning period?’
“We are in this financial situation because of money that is not being released to public schools because of vouchers. And I wish people would get more involved in this coming legislative session, that they would get more involved in going up to Austin and advocating for funding for public schools and public education. In terms of progress, that would help. If people want to verbalize their frustration over school funding, or planning periods that have been cut out of necessity, talking to our elected officials before the next legislative session begins would be a great place to start.”