GISD Adopts 2019-2020 Budget and Tax Rate

By Will Johnson

Messenger Reporter

GRAPELAND – The Grapeland Independent School District Board of Trustees now has a financial blueprint to navigate the 2019-2020 school year following a called meeting of the board held on Thursday, Aug. 29.

The meeting was called to order by Grapeland ISD Board President James Martin who opened the special session by moving the board into a public hearing on the budget and proposed tax rate. No one spoke in favor of or against the proposals so Martin closed the hearing and moved to the next agenda item which called for a discussion and adoption of the 2019-2020 budget.

After GISD Business Manager Julie Martin presented the trustees with a packet of information concerning the budget, she walked the board members through the various line items.  

“These numbers right here,” she said as she gestured towards the packet, “are pulled off of this worksheet which is every line item we have budgeted.”

“For our revenue,” Martin continued, “I looked at numbers today and we 306 students enrolled in the elementary, 111 students enrolled in the junior high and we have 187 students enrolled in high school. That is a total of 547.”

Given the district finished the 2018-2019 school year with a 95% attendance rate, Martin said she took the 547 enrollment figure and multiplied it by 95% to get an average daily attendance (ADA) of 519.65 which would be what the state based its funding on.

Once Martin concluded her presentation, the board unanimously approved the 2019-2020 budget. The budget shows total revenues of $7.349,954 and expenditures of $7,383,104. 

The board also approved the tax rate for the 2019-2020 school year. With the tax compression mandated by the state legislature this year, the GISD tax rate will actually drop from $1.32 per $100 of property valuation to $1.2036 per $100 of property valuation.    

Will Johnson may be contacted via e-mail at [email protected].