WICHITA FALLS, Texas (KAUZ) - Summer break may be underway for students, but the WFISD school board is still hard at work. Earlier this evening, the board met for back-to-back public hearings covering first a turnaround plan designed to improve academic outcomes at Hirschi Middle School , and then the 2025-2026 WFISD budget. Neither hearing attracted any public commenters, so the board went into regular session for a sweeping slate of issues.

The biggest item on the agenda was the approval of the 2025-2026 budget. That budget intentionally underestimates the funding the district is likely to receive from the state with the hopes of having surplus funding at the end of the year - something Superintendent Donny Lee said the district has successfully achieved the past few years.

“Now because of that, in ‘22-23, we had a $24 million savings account balance, today we have over $50 million, it’s more than doubled. We’re healthy in that regard. And now we’re just waiting on the legislature to give us the funds from HB 2, and we’re going to give our teachers another pay raise for another year in a row,” Lee said.

Schools are given funding by the state according to their average daily attendance, which is estimated in advance of the school year. Lee said WFISD tends to submit conservative estimates to give its budget a buffer zone. Last year, ADA was a little over 11,300. This year, the district is budgeting based on an ADA estimate of 11,100.

“We ended up getting a settle-up, which means the state paid us back, and that’s what we like, we don’t like owing the state money at the end of the year. So we’re going to do the same thing. [11,100], even though we could probably budget it on [11,300], just so we have a little buffer there. And hey, if we get an enrollment increase, or students are coming at a better clip than 93%, we’re going to be in good shape,” Lee said.

Once House Bill 2, the Texas legislature’s key education bill , is signed into law, the district expects even more funding to be available.

“That is a conservative budget to say the least. We are operating on data that we have today. That includes none of the new revenue from HB 2, that includes none of our allotments,” Lee said, later adding, “Once that comes in, we’ll bring it back to the board. There’ll be adjustments to that, there’ll be a compensation plan delivered to the board, and then we’ll get that information out to staff.”

The board also approved the turnaround plan for Hirschi and discussed the next steps for the Rider and McNiel campuses, both of which are set to undergo renovations.