At the latest Houston ISD budget workshop, Superintendent Mike Miles proposed a $2.1 billion budget for the 2025-26 school year.
Miles outlined new investments, Legislative Session updates and strategies to “get out of intervention status,” referring to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) takeover of HISD. The calculated trade-offs in the budget, set to be approved in June, require HISD to begin the next school year without jeopardizing its financial footing.
The budget caters to board goals
The action plan Miles presented is rooted in the board’s goals of:
- Improving the quality of education for which no additional funding was allocated
“We will always have some new teachers moving toward certification,” Miles said. “We think we’ll have fewer and fewer of those [uncertified teachers] but we are living in a certified educational deficit in the country and in the state of Texas. So we’ll probably always have an effort to improve teacher instruction.”
Currently, about 16% of HISD’s 13,000 teachers are uncertified and several have no classroom experience.
Miles said the focus will be on principals’ instructional feedback to teachers, improving HISD’s Independent Review Team (IRT) and emergent bilingual instructional strategies.
- Implementing a new Teacher Evaluation System (TES) that will receive an additional $1 million the next school year
HISD’s board of managers approved a new teacher evaluation system to implement a pay-for-performance compensation plan. Principals and appraisers would have to pass a certification to evaluate teachers.
Miles said that while engagement campaigns and professional development would not require extra funding, implementing the TES will require more central office management.
- Improving special education instruction, for which no extra funding was allocated
HISD’s allocation of funding for this goal depends on whether more special ed students join the school district and if they do, the budget will increase, per Miles.
- Expanding HISD’s Pre-K3 and Pre-K4 programs and adding 800 additional PreK seats with an additional $5 million
Kristen Hole, HISD’s chief academic officer, clarified that the majority of this budget allocation will be for teaching assistants to help reach the school district’s goal of having a 1:11 ratio of students to TAs. The remaining funds will be used for new classrooms, furniture, equipment and curriculum. Hole added that HISD is also investing in marketing resources to inform parents about Pre-K seat availability.
- Improving systems and efficiency with an additional $10 million
Miles aims to achieve efficiency through transportation optimization, accuracy of HISD data with a data integration team and tracking KPIs, by decreasing cost and transit time per rider and launching internal dashboards to improve response times.
Taking the example of “chronically absent teachers,” Miles said there are now regulations around teachers who exceed PTO days, which the previous administration did not have.
- Investing an additional $2,000,000 on HISD NOW content, HISD’s YouTube channel
“We hope that HISD NOW will grow in its viewership and we can get information out that way,” Miles said.
The communications budget for this current academic year was “very small” at more than $1 million dollars, the district explained, including money spent on bond education.
However, HISD may tap into “philanthropic dollars” amounting to $10 million in the future for large-scale communications and data integration projects.
- Expanding Career and Technical Education (CTE) and College, Career and Military Preparation (CCMP) upgrades with an additional $10,000,000 and the completion of phase 1 of the Barbara Jordan CTE renovation project that will cost $20,0000 in maintenance tax notes
Board member Adam Rivon asked Miles about his strategies to make the Barbara Jordan facility available districtwide. Miles responded it will be available to 10 high schools for the time being, while others will have access to other CTE programs.
- Investing in health and safety with an additional budget allocation of $40 million
Miles said HISD urgently needs $1.03 billion in health and safety measures, which was included in the $4.4 billion bond proposal. While HISD “can’t spend that much money,” the school board is expecting an amount that will offset the district’s potential shortfall.
Navigating the fiscal tightrope
While HISD anticipates increased funding from the state—referring to pending legislation including HB 2 (which may raise the basic allotment per student) and SB 26 (that proposes a teacher pay raise)—Miles was clear, “Don’t go buying any property based on this information.”
He iterated that the current budget assumptions remain conservative and revenue updates are expected after the legislative session ends.
Miles also said HISD will calculate school budgets using a per-unit allocation (PUA) model based on projected enrollment and average daily attendance (ADA). The model includes the weights or amounts for gifted and talented, small school subsidy, bilingual, special education, at-risk, homeless, refugee students, magnet subsidies and more.
Schools experiencing enrollment or ADA declines can expect budget reductions but will receive 10% of any lost funding back. For example, a school projected to lose over $2.5 million due to drops in both enrollment and attendance would recoup about $258,000 of that cut.
“If you have a decrease in ADA or enrollment, then it is likely that your budget goes down and people should not be surprised about that,” Miles said. “That’s fiscally responsible behavior.”
He acknowledged that some small schools may not be financially sustainable and the district will continue to subsidize them for the 2025-26 school year. However, it expects to bring closure recommendations by late fall for implementation in 2026-27.
What HISD will and won’t pay for
Despite the tighter reins, HISD is maintaining centralized funding for several core services, such as curriculum for all NES schools and key resources like Zearn, Summit K-12 and Newsela for Priority and Underserved Area (PUA) campuses. It will also pay for dual credit, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate testing fees and materials, TSI assessment fees for the SAT, ACT and TSIA, CTE curriculum, health services and fine arts support.
A notable shift is the centralized purchase of only vetted curricula. If a curriculum is not vetted, HISD will not pay for it.
