‘Miraculous’ grants balance LMISD budget

LA MARQUE — Thursday’s La Marque school board meeting later could become known as the Miracle on Bayou Road.

Faced with dwindling enrollment, a multimillion deficit and the prospect of an unpopular tax rate increase election, Superintendent Ecomet Burley pulled a rabbit out of his financial hat and unveiled a budget plan that would give the district a balanced budget without a tax rate increase or another round of layoffs.

The district still is borrowing about $3 million to cover first-of-the-year expenses but should be able to pay off the loan by February. The district's budget is expected to come in between $26 million and $28 million.

So how did a district that was facing a $5 million deficit five months ago and cut 60 staff positions to slash the deficit in half, wind up with a balanced budget?

That was the job of Assistant Superintendent for School Improvement Joannie Hudson, Burley said.

Hudson found a way to have millions of dollars for staff positions paid for from grant dollars instead of local tax dollars. About $2.1 million in district salaries will be covered by 10 federal and state grants.

The biggest chunk of that money will come from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Hudson said.

“Anytime you are looking for funds, you look for your grant funds first,” Hudson, who has been on the job for less than two months, said.

Even board member Annie Burton called the financial picture presented Thursday “miraculous.”

One of the administration’s toughest critics, Burton said she has for months insisted the district seek out other ways to save or find more money.

While encouraged by what she heard, she thinks more should be done.

“If this money has been located, there’s additional money out there,” Burton said. “We need to find out where (it is). The money is out there.”

The district also was helped when the state sent an infusion to its bank account Thursday morning. La Marque administrators and the Texas Education Agency had been haggling about the difference in state help earmarked for districts along the coast that lost property tax revenue because of Hurricane Ike.

Burley said the district had figured it would see about $1.4 million in additional state revenues.

Instead, state officials gave La Marque $46,000. On Thursday, the state sent the district about $681,000 as a partial payment. Financial Director Laurie Alexander said the state warned no additional funds would be coming, but Burley vowed the district would keep seeking the rest of the money.

A tax ratification election that would boost the district’s tax rate by as much as 13 cents per $100 of property value would have to be revisited later in the school year, officials said.

The district is far from being out of the woods.

Grant funding is never a long-term guarantee, and the district will have find a way to stop its enrollment hemorrhaging.

That task could be the toughest of all. Burley pointed out there is concern the district’s budget woes have parents considering pulling their children out of the district.

He set out to assure parents the district would survive the turmoil.

That still might not be enough for Sherlinda Lamb-Hunton. Not satisfied with the educational standards in La Marque, she pulled her three children out of the district before and enrolled them at Mainland Preparatory Charter School several years ago.

Soon after Burley became superintendent, Lamb-Hunton said district officials promised her things had changed and convinced her to give the district another try. She has a son at Highlands Elementary and a daughter and son at the middle school.

While the former La Marque student has seen academic progress in the district, it’s been slow and not to the standards she wants for her children, she said. Lamb-Hunton said her children have asked her to take them to another district.

“I’m a homeowner in La Marque, but I am willing to move my kids for their education,” she said.

Despite the encouraging financial news Thursday, Lamb-Hunton said she was leaning toward pulling her kids out and trying to enroll them elsewhere, possibly the Dickinson school district.