MISD Trustees School Finance Principles
 

MISD School Board Principles
 

The McKinney ISD Board of Trustees will support proposed school finance legislation that incorporates all of these principles.

Adequacy Principle -
A state school finance system should specifically define an education and provide a means to “adequately” fund it.

In MISD…
· Our community supports the belief that an adequate education includes the core subjects and extra-curricular activities, fine arts education, gifted education, special education and Bilingual education.
· MISD supports the stance that any proposed school finance legislation must incorporate all of the aforementioned programs.

Equity Principle –
A state school finance system should work to maintain equity in funding across the state.

· Whereas adequacy tells us how much money we need to meet our goals; equity tells us whether we are allocating state funds fairly.
· Texas has defined school finance equity in terms of “fiscal neutrality”. A fiscally neutral system should show no relationship between the property wealth of a school district and the resources available to educate each student.
In MISD…
· We believe that the State should provide to our students an equal amount of educational resources as students in other districts in the state receive.

Capacity Principle –
A state school finance system should provide for the support and maintenance of an education and create stable revenue structures that will enable the state/local partnership to meet the adequacy and equity principle.

In MISD…
· MISD is one of the few districts in the state at capacity on both the maintenance side of the tax rate (we are at the state limit of $1.50 per $100 of assessed property value) and the debt service side of the tax rate (we are at the state limit of .50 per $100 of assessed property value). We have no capacity to raise additional dollars through our tax rate to fund continued growth, consequently, for the third year in a row we are spending less money per student in MISD.
· Education is a people intensive profession. In total, last year salaries and benefits accounted for 76% of the total operating budget in MISD, with contracted services and utilities accounting for another 10%. Salaries have seen the most growth in terms of total dollars. However, state wide, the cost of benefits has grown at a much faster rate (by 52 percent compared to 38 percent for salaries. – A Cost Analysis for Texas Public Schools, 2004).
· With no additional capacity, further cuts in our future budgets will impact programs our community has defined as integral to an adequate education.

Local Responsibility Principle –
A state school finance system should respect the right of local school communities to allocate resources.

· Local responsibility means giving local communities the opportunity to identify and fund programs above and beyond state baseline standards for education. It also means holding local school districts and school boards accountable for locally defined performance standards. Such programs might include, but would not be limited to, an augmented fine arts or gifted and talented program, school to work programs, or enhanced after school programs.
· Additionally, we support legislation that would give our community the ability to make decisions around issues like the school calendar, student teacher ratios, and impact fees*.
*MISD advocates for new legislation which would give fast growth school districts the local option, with voter approval, of collecting impact fees from new residential development to fund new school construction.

Facilities Principle –
 A state school finance system should provide support for existing debt and new facilities to serve growth.

In MISD…
· MISD has grown 62.75% in the past 5 years, adding 7,000 students during that time frame. We are expected to add another 10,000 students over the next five years. Our growth makes us one of the top three fastest growing school districts in the state. A natural consequence of an increasing enrollment without additional schools to accommodate new students is an increase in student teacher ratios and/or a possible attendance schedule that would allow use of our school buildings in shifts over a longer day and the full calendar year.
· Constructing new facilities and maintaining current facilities are both critical issues in fast growth districts like MISD. Our district has opened 10 schools in the last 5 years to serve our increasing enrollment.
· In MISD we believe that the most effective, efficient and safest method for educating the students is in brick and mortar buildings, not in portable buildings for an extended amount of time. Without having a facilities adjustment for fast growth districts such as MISD, there will be additional portables used and potentially overcrowded classrooms.
 

Additional Board Links
Below is a list of addition links regarding the McKinney ISD Board of Trustees

McKinney ISD Board Home Page - General Information regarding MISD School Board
Invest in Texas Public Schools - Powerpoint Presentation
Calendar of Work Sessions and Board Meetings for 2004-2005-Meeting Schedules