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The trustees of the Judson Independent School District are no stranger to contentious board meetings. Superintendent Milton Fields went so far as to call one meeting in April “disgusting.”
But even after a shift in the board’s make up following the May election, simmering tensions remain.
Those tensions were on full display during a five-hour board meeting June 5, which featured long and tense discussions over the budget deficit. Although dialogue was mostly polite, it was at times pointed.
One of the biggest points of contention was the hiring of an outside financial consultant.
During the May 21 board meeting, longtime trustee José Macias Jr. asked the three new trustees Stephanie Jones, Lesley Lee, and Amanda Poteet, to meet with district leadership one-on-one to learn more about the budget before voting to hire the consultant.
Jones, Lee, and Poteet said Thursday they had met with the superintendent and found it helpful, but they still felt the outside consultant was needed. They voted 4-3 with their new board president, Monica Ryan, to hire a financial consultant and give Ryan the ability to choose who that consultant would be.
“I don't think it's fair to ask the administration to hold our hands and essentially spoon feed us this information, when we can go and get a financial consultant to come in and explain it to us,” Poteet said. “And I don't think it's fair that we have experienced board members telling us you don't need this, even though we are in an unprecedented time frame right now (with the budget deficit).”
Macias said he didn’t think the consultant would help because any decisions they make will be difficult, and he worried an outside consultant would lead to the board micromanaging district leadership.
“A consultant that is working directly with our board president will get to a point where there is a conflict of an analysis that is not educating you, it's analyzing and trying to potentially attack our administration,” Macias said.
The Texas Education Agency took over management of South San Antonio ISD earlier this year in part because their elected board micromanaged superintendents.
Macias and his allies on the board, Laura Stanford and Suzanne Kenoyer, tried to change the choice of consultant from the board president’s decision to a consensus of the board, but were outvoted 4 to 3. They also tried to suggest using the Texas Association of School Boards as the consultant, but they were outvoted again.
Stanford said she thought TASB would be less expensive, and Macias said TASB would be neutral and experienced.
“I'm not diminishing what you guys want and need. I'm saying, let's do it this way, because I feel that's a compromise cost wise,” Stanford said. “I don't think we need to spend $175,000 on a specialized consultant at this point.”
“That number has never been mentioned anywhere,” Ryan interjected.
Prior to the May election, Ryan was often a loud but lonely dissenting voice. Now, she has the backing of the board’s three newcomers.
“It's not just the new people who you know are uncomfortable with this. I am two years in, and have been up to my neck in finances the whole two years, and I still don't know how to move forward in this next year and right size this district financially,” Ryan said to explain why she wants to hire a consultant. “We are facing some huge decisions in the next year, right? We're going to have to readdress closing schools. We're going to have to address positions. They're going to be hard decisions, because it's going to involve a room full of people with signs and T-shirts.”
Ryan, Lee, Jones and Poteet attempted to quickly move to close schools in May, but they backed down after outcry from the community.
“Decisions are still going to have to be made, but it's a lot easier to make those decisions when someone is guiding you as a board through that process and helping advise you on how other school boards have addressed this within their community,” Ryan said.
Judson Superintendent Milton Fields has repeatedly expressed frustration over the fact that his team has recommended many budget cuts that trustees don’t approve.
“I said before we stand ready to work with anyone whom the board feels like we need to work with. If you ask me, ‘Do we need it,’ I'd say, ‘No, you guys need to talk to our subject matter expert. We have an individual who does this for a living,” Fields said again Thursday night. “Our experience with audit firms in the past who have come in that weren't from TASB or someone who has the subject matter expertise — we paid a lot of money, and we were even unable to use the recommendations because they just didn't understand the process.”
“I don't want to get into the history. I don't want to get into what I said versus what was done,” Fields went on to say. “I do want to say, though, that we knew we would find ourselves in this situation. This should not be a shock to anybody who's been here for the last two years. We said we were going to be here, and now we're having to make the hard decisions.”
On Thursday, Judson’s trustees again voted against budget cut recommendations made by district leaders. They suggested setting a ratio of 350 students per counselor at the secondary level, which would save $664,000 by eliminating the need to hire eight counselors. Trustees voted 6 to 1 against the recommendation.
Board President Monica Ryan said she was unwilling to reduce the number of counselors unless the number of assistant principals were also reduced.
“My frustration in this whole thing is that we have certain departments who are bringing us reductions, and it feels like they're being punished for coming up with reductions,” Ryan said. “If you fuss, you get your way — that's the perception around the community.
“If everybody's just going to be able to keep everything, then let's keep the counselors then too,” she said.
District leaders said they asked campus administrators and the guidance department to weigh in on cutting counselors and assistant principals, and the consensus was that counselors would be easier to lose than assistant principals.
“As Dr. Fields has said numerous times, there are other avenues we can use to purchase support for social-emotional learning on the campus. We have at-risk counselors. We have Communities in Schools. We have social workers. We do not have that avenue for administrators. There is no backup dancer,” Assistant Superintendent Kristin Saunders said.
But Ryan said if any cuts were going to be made, then they should be made across the board in line with the ratios recommended by TASB. Other trustees were reluctant to cut counselors because they saw them as essential for students.
Trustees did approve two recommendations that will save over $1 million but won’t result in fewer staff at schools: eliminating 25 vacant non-teaching positions, and converting four elementary RN positions to LVNs.
With an estimate of $5.7 million in flexible new funding coming from the school finance law signed by the governor, Judson officials said Thursday their deficit next year would be lowered to $31.1 million if trustees approved all of their recommended cuts.
District officials also said most of the remaining deficit could be eliminated if voters agreed to give them permanent access to the maximum amount of golden pennies allowed by state law, plus five copper pennies.
But that would require something called a Voter Approval Tax Rate Election — something Ryan and her allies are reluctant to do.
Trustees did vote to spend about $20,000 on an efficiency audit from education and school finance firm Moak Casey. It's a recommended first step for the tax election, but Ryan said it was good information to have even if they don't go for the election.
(Golden pennies and copper pennies are considered enrichment funding. Districts get more bang for the buck with golden pennies, but they are only allowed a limited amount). TPR did a deep dive on golden pennies in 2023 that explains more.
