Harlingen schools’ fund balance slips to $27.3 million after state funding pause

HARLINGEN — An April funding pause led the school district’s fund balance to drop to $27.3 million, down from $36.7 million about a month ago.

In April, the state doesn’t send the district its $12 million funding portion, so the fund balance dipped, Ida Ambriz, the district’s interim superintendent of business services, said Thursday.

“That was anticipated,” she said in an interview. “It should go up. We should be leveling off pretty soon.”

For eight months, officials have been working under a new fiscal plan, reviewing expenses while aiming to boost the budget’s fund balance after former Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez’s administration withdrew $23.2 million in cash reserves, dropping the fund balance as low as $17.2 million.

Last month, the district’s fund balance climbed to $36.7 million, up from $17.5 million a month before, after officials placed $18 million in maintenance tax proceeds into the account.

As of April 30, the district had collected $42.7 million in tax revenue, or 91.8% of its $46.5 million levy, with its general fund revenue standing at $45.3 million.

From 2022 to 2024, the district’s fund balance plunged from $48.3 million to $17.2 million, its level when the school board passed the current $215.3 million budget last June, Noe Hinojosa, the district’s financial advisor with Estrada Hinojosa, told board members in a January report.

At the time, he was projecting a period as long as three to five years to build back the budget’s cash reserves.

So far this year, district officials have collected $142.2 million in revenue, with expenditures at $150.7 million, Ambriz told school board members during a meeting Tuesday.

“This is incredible how we’re getting everything back on track like it should be,” board President Dr. Nolan Perez told officials.

Like districts across the state, officials here are monitoring House Bill 2, which could pump about $1 billion into public education.

Now, officials are counting on the legislation to boost funding here from $6,160 per student to $6,555, Ambriz told board members during a May 6 meeting.

For every student, the bill could hike funding by $359, with officials planning to set aside 40% of the increase to help pay staff salaries, she said.

“That’s definitely a good, positive outcome for us for the next school year,” Ambriz said.

The legislation, she said, could also pump $1.5 million into the district’s special education program while boosting the Teacher Incentive Allotment Program’s funding, aimed at offering merit raises while helping districts recruit and retain teachers.

Meanwhile, the bill could also boost the district’s safety allotment from $15,000 to $37,000 per campus.

“This is like rain in the desert,” board member Ricky Leal told officials. “We badly need it. It’s way past due. But it’s going to help immensely going forward and planning our budget.”

This year, Superintendent Veronica Kortan helped launch a new fiscal plan aimed at helping the district recover its strong financial standing.

Now, officials are getting closer to finalizing a proposed budget along with its compensation plan, a year after many teachers complained they were passed over for raises.

“As we have navigated through these last few months, the systems that we have brought forward have been to make sure that we have consistency in practices, to have sustained implementation of systems that will make sure that we are going to always be within our parameters of an adopted budget,” Kortan told board members during their May 6 meeting.

“We’ve done a lot of work around making sure that we’re going to be fiscally responsible,” she said. “As we look to bringing forward our budget for the ‘25-‘26 school year, we are excited to be able to prep our community for that and certainly have a balanced budget.”

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