We are financially and academically strong

The good news about Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD is that we are a financially and academically strong public school district.

We are very fortunate that we have solid, well-versed educators and financial leaders on our team. That doesn’t mean that our district like other Texas school districts isn’t facing financial challenges.

Basically, C-FB ISD and other Texas districts are in this situation because our state school finance system operates under what are called Revenue Targets. Revenue amounts are now based on the Revenue Target per student allocation not on local property values.

Increases in property values are no longer as important to the maintenance and operating (M&0) budgets of school districts as they once were. If local property values increase, state funding decreases. Unfortunately, the Revenue Target hasn’t provided for needed teachers or competitive teacher salaries or kept up with other such rising costs as utilities, health insurance, gasoline, and food.

C-FB ISD is coping with those challenges because the School Board and Administration realize that the district's complete financial picture includes fiscal responsibility to taxpayers, a quality educational program for students, and competitive salaries for staff.

Plus by working together, C-FB ISD developed guiding objectives that we’ve been using to help reduce our M&O budget for the 2009-2010 year. Using those objectives, the district has made significant reductions in many areas of our budget. Even with these reductions, C-FB ISD will still have a deficit budget for 2009-10. This will require additional reductions in the future as well as a consideration of a tax increase.

We’ve also delayed our construction program for a year. The district did not sell any school construction bonds this year. As a result, the district is lowering its debt service tax rate from .3223 cents to .3022 cents. This decrease will help our taxpayers see a slightly lower overall tax bill. (You can see that on page 39 of the “Quick Facts” below.) In fact, this is the fourth year that the district has lowered the debt service portion of the district’s overall tax rate.

Our finance department pulls together lots of great information about the district’s budget and other financial information. One such document is the “Quick Facts Version of the 2009-10 Budget.” This 42-page document is below, and it can also be found on www.cfbisd.edu.

A public hearing will be held on the 2009-2010 budget at the next School Board meeting on August 27 at 7 p.m. All meetings are in the Administration Building, 1445 North Perry Road, Carrollton.


Quick Facks Version Budget 2009-10