The Pampa Independent School District Board of Trustees held a regularly-scheduled meeting on Thursday evening where they held the first public hearing to discuss the 2021-22 budget and tax rate.
“(Pampa ISD chief financial officer) Todd Hubbart went over the proposed budget, talked about projected revenues, federal program budgets and child nutrition budget,” Pampa ISD Superintendent Dr. Tanya Larkin said. “The whole budget is based on an average daily attendance (ADA) of 3,050. That’s not how many students attend, but how many on average attend every day. That also includes a two-percent raise for the staff because benefits go up (like health insurance). We need to be able to offset that cost.”
The M&O (Maintenance and Operation) rate is $0.9734, which is lower than the 2020 M&O rate but is the maximum they can set without going through a voter-approved tax ratification election. The I&S (Interest and Sinking) rate is $0.245, which is two cents less than last year’s rate. The Board is considering the idea of moving the two pennies saved from the I&S to the M&O side of the tax rate, which will generate $800,000 from the State but not affect the taxpayers in Pampa.
“It’s a really unique opportunity,” Dr. Larkin said. “We won’t be passing the burden on to the taxpayers but we will be generating more money from the State.”
The Board did approve the proposed budget and will look at the tax rate later this summer.
The Board also approved the first phase of the PISD Strategic Plan. The District has been working for six months with stakeholders in the community including parents, teachers, business owners and others to formulate a plan for the District.
“That team went over our mission, our beliefs, our learner outcomes, learner and educator profiles, our goals and even specific results for year one,” Dr. Larkin said. “We had every stakeholder (more than 300 people) involved in numerous ways. We built that first year of the three-to-five year plan to begin sharing that plan.”
The plan is a broad range of topics including teacher recruiting/retention, curriculum, facilities and instruction.
The Board approved the switch of the Pampa Junior High Mascot from a Reaper to a Harvester. The topic came up during some of the strategic planning meetings.
“Everyone in our community loves our schools, loves our high school and our kids,” Dr. Larkin said. “They support the Harvesters. We’re known as the Harvesters across the State and even the nation. There was a lot of discussion about changing our PJHS mascot to the Harvesters,”
Dr. Larkin said the approval of the action was met with a roaring applause from the roughly 50 people in attendance.
The Board also approved the following items:
• Final 2020-2021 budget amendment
• The 2021-2022 Pampa ISD compensation plan
• Revise policy CB(LOCAL): State and Federal Revenue Sources: This allowed the District to apply for ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) grants through the federal government.
• Pampa ISD Strategic Plan
• Action regarding Pampa Junior High Mascot
• Delegate for the 2021 TASB Convention- Cade Taylor was nominated to go to the meeting to be hosted in Dallas with Misty LeBlanc as the alternate.
• Action regarding board committees- Cade Taylor is taking Lance DeFever’s old spot on the safety/security committee and Misty LeBlanc will serve on the Heritage Committee.
The Board was also presented with the following reports:
• Enrollment report- PISD ended the year down 180 students, with about 75 being from pre-kindergarten, which has been a common trend seen nationwide.
• STAAR and EOC preliminary results - Dr. Larkin said there was 100 percent growth in benchmark for STAAR testing and there was growth from the 2018-19 school year. There was also concern reading would drop, but the decrease was not near what the District expected. The bigger concern was the drop in math by the District and the state, as well. “There is a lot of work to do but the drop was not as bad as we thought it was going to be,” Dr. Larkin said. There will not be an accountability rating based on this year’s STAAR tests.
