The Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District Board of Trustees approved a $1.25 billion budget for the 2026-27 school year in a 6-1 vote this week, with Trustee Christine Kalmbach casting the lone dissenting vote.
The general fund breaks down to $508 million in local revenue, $651 million in state revenue, and $6.7 million from federal and other sources, bringing total revenue to roughly $1.17 billion. Of the total budget, approximately 65 percent is directed toward classroom instruction.
The district is nonetheless projecting an $80.9 million deficit for the coming school year.
Superintendent Dr. Douglas Killian pointed to the gap between the state’s investment in public education and rising operational costs as the central driver. “While public education benefited from a historic $8.5 billion state investment, rising costs for basic operations like utilities and fuel have outpaced those gains, resulting in a projected $80.9 million deficit for CFISD,” Killian said in a district press release.
District documents point to several contributing factors, including state funding that has not kept pace with inflation, unfunded mandates from the state, a 20 percent local optional homestead exemption that has cut into local revenue, declining enrollment and average daily attendance, and a drop in revenue from the School Health and Related Services program. Known as SHARS, the federal Medicaid program reimburses schools for health services provided to Medicaid-eligible students with disabilities.
The enrollment picture has been deteriorating for a while.
Cy-Fair lost more than 3,200 students in a single year, a decline the district had expected to unfold over a much longer period. Demographers have projected the district could lose between 4,000 and 8,000 additional students over the next four years if the trend continues, driven by falling birth rates, the growth of charter schools within district boundaries, and the state’s new Education Freedom Accounts providing families with educational funds for private or homeschool options.
As part of the adopted budget, all full-time employees are guaranteed a one-time $500 recruitment and retention stipend regardless of any future tax election outcome. Teachers will also receive step pay increases based on years of experience, and all employees will see increased district contributions toward health insurance.
The budget also ties two additional stipends to a potential 12-cent tax rate increase election, known as a voter-approval tax rate election, or VATRE.
If the board calls for the election and voters approve it in November 2026, full-time hourly and paraprofessional employees would receive a $2,000 stipend and all other full-time employees would receive a $1,000 stipend, both payable by February 28, 2027.
For a home valued at $350,000, the proposed tax increase would add roughly $126 per year to the property tax bill.
Superintendent Killian said if the VATRE fails, the district would be looking at approximately $80 million in cuts for the 2027-28 school year. “I don’t want to be in the position of having to go through cuts again,” he told the Houston Press in May. “It’s traumatic for our staff and it drives people out of the district for something more stable.”
The board has not yet called the VATRE election. It is worth noting that a similar effort in Fort Bend ISD failed in 2022, when 54 percent of voters rejected a tax rate election the district sought to address a then-$46.8 million deficit. Fort Bend ISD is currently facing a $32.8 million shortfall of its own for 2026-27.
Cy-Fair is the third-largest school district in Texas, serving students across northwest Harris County.
