Amid leadership shakeups and board dysfunction, Judson Independent School District could start a school year without a budget deficit for the first time since 2022.
On Monday, district staff presented the board with a plan that could save Judson about $35.2 million — nearly the size of its current deficit — by reducing the number of staff positions by 7%.
Judson currently has 3,371 full-time employees, and the 7% cut would translate to 536 eliminated positions, but it doesn’t necessarily mean mass layoffs, said Robert Jaklich, interim superintendent at Judson.
Jaklich, a retired superintendent, joined Judson in February, the third interim leader chosen in the span of weeks after the board fired Superintendent Milton Fields for reasons still kept under wraps. The district faces a $37 million budget shortfall.
“This challenge here brought me out of retirement because I knew it could be done and I knew we had the right people to do it,” Jaklich said on Monday.
The district already has 175 vacancies and plans to close four campuses by the end of the school year, freeing up another 281 positions and saving the district another $7 million. If the board approves Jaklich’s budget recommendation, the number of employees who would be directly affected by the cuts would be closer to 77.
Right now, 91% of the district’s total budget goes toward personnel, though best practices are to allocate 85% of funds for staff. Several of those “surplus” positions were added after the COVID-19 pandemic through federal funds that have since run out, but Judson kept paying for them.
Jaklich, along with outside financial consultant Greg Gibson, said tackling overstaffing is the only way the district could have a balanced budget by the 2026-27 school year.
In the last four years, Judson’s fund balance has gone from $123.7 million to $52 million. The state requires districts to have fund balances, essentially savings accounts, large enough to cover at least three months (75 days) of operations to keep a good financial rating, which helps them buy and finance bonds.
“Right now we’re at 71 days, and we need to right that wrong,” said Jaklich.
Judson is right under the threshold right now. Without cutting its budget, officials expect the fund balance to quickly decrease, hitting negative $7 million by the 2027-28 school year.
Like most school districts in San Antonio, Judson has had a budget deficit within the past few years because of declining student enrollment, increased direction from the state on how to spend funds and overall rising costs.
Unlike other districts however, Judson did not take significant steps in addressing its budget issues until this school year. Last year, the board voted against closing schools and other cost saving measures, feeling they were being rushed. In December, the board delayed taking action again because of data discrepancies staff found in their budget presentation.
At the same time, board dynamics grew more tense, reaching a boiling point over Milton’s removal and resulting in public disputes amongst trustees.
Judson has also gone without a chief financial officer since October of last year, a position critical to shaping a district’s financial direction. Gibson, who’s financially consulted the district since last year, noted that going without a CFO has left Judson’s executive staff — which are meant to handle things like hiring, operations and instruction — as the “de facto CFO.”
While the board has approved some cost saving measures like cutting calendar days and reducing librarian positions this school year, Jaklich said his staff will ask the board to rescind those decisions in order to implement the 7% staff reduction.
If the board agrees, Judson would reduce positions from six general areas: teaching (the largest group), campus administrators, central office administrators, auxiliary staff, professional support and educational aids.
Cutting proportionately from each group is the best way to go, district officials said.
“It does not require that any one particular program or any one particular group of individuals carry the burden of reducing that,” said Lacey Gosh, assistant superintendent of support services at Judson ISD.
Kristin Saunders, who oversees curriculum and instruction, said the school closure combined with the proposed staffing allocations would allow the district to focus on attracting and retaining the “most effective” teachers on the campuses that needed them the most.
Judson has six F-rated campuses, a handful of which have gotten failing ratings from the state two or three years in a row. Getting a fourth failing rating could open the district up to state intervention. A fifth requires the state to get involved.
By addressing the budget, Jaklich hopes the district can focus on bringing underperforming schools up to par academically.
“In my seven weeks in the district, we haven’t had that conversation as much as we should,” he said.
If the board agrees to cutting staff positions, the district would have to take into account new school boundaries and attendance zones created by the recent school closures.
District staff are also recommending increasing teacher-student staffing ratios across all grades, along with more staffing reevaluation based on student needs and regular turnover. The district is even considering going out for another voter-approval tax rate election (VATRE) that could unlock an extra $11 million every year for the district to use on things like pay raises and student programs.
Judson went out for a VATRE last year, but 60% of voters rejected the proposition. By balancing the budget this year, Jaklich is optimistic that voters would choose differently the next time it’s proposed.
The board is set to vote on the budget proposal next week.
“By the end of this year, our budget workshop would be very enjoyable because we would be adopting a balanced budget for the first time [in years],” he told the board. “We will be one of the only school districts in San Antonio to be able to say that.”
