Trustees of the Austin Independent School District declared a financial exigency last week that will allow it to terminate contracts covering 1,153 teaching and administrative posts.
Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said the district’s financial difficulties are caused by a decline in local property values and anticipated cuts in state support for public education.
“AISD spends more money than we bring in,” she said. “We are cutting because we don’t have enough money to run the school system the way it is.”
Without the cuts, the district would have a revenue shortfall of $94 million in fiscal 2012.
Carstarphen’s proposed operating budget of $688 million in fiscal 2012 would eliminate bonuses, reduce foreign language programs and athletics, and require workers to take a two-day unpaid furlough.
Austin ISD has an enrollment of 85,000 students at its 100 campuses.
The district’s $742 million of outstanding GO debt is rated Aaa by Moody’s Investors Service and AA-plus by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings, and is enhanced to triple-A through the Texas Permanent School Fund.
In the past two years, at least 40 of Texas’ 1,031 school districts have declared exigency.
Bonds issued by districts while in financial exigency cannot be enhanced through the PSF.
