Published: November 29, 2006 05:07 pm         

Pilot Point ISD faces financial peril

Pilot Point School Board President, Glen Ray, said he was just taking precautions when he sent out a letter explaining the district’s recent financial woes.

The letter outlined the board’s decision to declare a financial emergency for the district at it Nov. 13 board meeting. The declaration would allow the district to terminate employment contracts and break some contractual agreements.

But Ray said he and the other board members are not even certain the situation will come to that.

“First of all, we have not got the audit for 2006. Whether there is a problem is still to be determined,” Ray said in a telephone interview Wednesday morning.

The financial problems began, Ray said, with a decrease in enrollment in the district. He said the decrease was relatively minor, perhaps, “30 or 40 kids.” But because of reductions in state revenue (due to House Bill 1) which require property tax reductions and employee salary increases, the board foresaw a potential problem.

The state mandates came unfunded, he said, and while they may well be a good thing, paying for employee salary increases will not be an easy thing for the district.

“We did not cut expenses to make up for lost revenues,” he said. “The board engaged a former TEA official (Dr. Edd Flathouse) to review the situation. He was at the meeting two weeks ago and made his assumptions based on the previous school year. We have not received audited data from the previous school year. We will have that at the Dec. 11 meeting,” he explained.

Ray said the board was following normal procedures when it decided to declare the financial emergency.

In a story in the Pilot Point Post-Signal, Ray said he sent out the letters to let Pilot Point ISD employees know that layoffs were a possibility.

“It’s an option available to the district and we want them not to be shocked,” he said.