The district may be over-budgeting for state aid, leaving an additional $20.5 million deficit in that category at the end of the coming year. That would be in addition to any structural budget deficit already projected.

Updated on 9/7/2010 with additional information based on a conversation with Texas Education Agency. Please scroll to the bottom to see the update.

On Friday, we were forwarded an email from Pam Colli, of Flower Mound, that was being sent to local homeowners associations within Lewisville ISD. The email raises a number of questions about LISD's financial situation, including a couple of claims we had not seen before:

· In the 2007-2008 school year, LISD over projected enrollment by 1,600 children. LISD had projected a 48,500 student enrollment and actually only had 46,900 students. Because of the over projections, LISD owes the State of Texas Department of Education $14.3 Million.

· In the 2008-2009 school year, LISD over projected enrollment by 2,619 children. LISD had projected a 50,200 student enrollment and actually only had 47,581 students. Because of the over projections, LISD owes the State of Texas Department of Education $22.6 Million.

· This all means that for those 2 years combined, LISD owes the State $36.9 Million and they have to pay it back. What did they do with all the money that they received for the students that we did not have????? They spent it.

As of Thursday night, 847 Lewisville ISD voters had turned out to vote on the proposed M&O tax rate increase from $1.04 to $1.06 per $100 valuation.

Totals for each day were:
Monday: 134
Tuesday: 215
Wednesday: 258
Thursday: 240

District officials said that only one political action committee (PAC) called "Keep LISD Strong" had registered to support the increase. The filing is attached and shows that former trustee, Kathy Duke appointed Alex Buck of Lewisville as treasurer. No other PACs had registered, and the district said there had been no formal complaints about any campaign materials.

An unidentified group had mailed a postcard earlier this week opposing the tax increase. Elsewhere, readers report seeing signs supporting the increase near the polling location in Flower Mound.

Early voting continues today, and from the 7th through the 10th, and voters may vote in any early voting location. Election day is September 14th, and voters then must vote in their assigned precinct locations. No other items are on the ballot, aside from the tax increase.

A brochure describing the election and giving some background information and polling locations is available here.

WhosPlayin has not yet taken any position on this election.

Here's our new poll; let us know how you'll vote:

Postcards apparently hit some Lewisville mailboxes today from an unidentified sender, urging voters to vote against the Lewisville ISD tax rate increase.

We'll have some comments to add, but for now, we want to get this copy out so our readers can see it.

Click to view postcard - PDF format

If you know who sent this please email us.

Wow, this is certainly interesting. More than a month ago, WhosPlayin made an open records request for copies of expense reports submitted to the district by the Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent, and all board members. Today, we received a certified letter from the district's attorney, Robert Luna, that the district had requested exemption from disclosure for certain items.

I would like to note that WhosPlayin expressly stated on the original request: "Naturally, we understand the need to redact account numbers from receipts, if the submitters have not done that already."

In his letter to the AG, Luna reminds them that "Information must be withheld under Section 552.101 when (1) it is highly intimate and embarrassing, such that its release would be highly objectionable to a person of ordinary sensibilities, and (2) there is no legitimate public interest in its disclosure."

The letter goes on to reveal that the information contains personal financial decisions of District employees and officials: "This includes situations where an expense was charged on a District credit card issued to a District employee but the employee reimbursed the District in full for the expense." (emphasis ours)

We certainly have a big problem with district employees or board members using a district credit card for personal expenses, whether or not they are reimbursed. LISD is not a lending institution. Any personal charges on a district credit card certainly should be disclosed, and let the chips fall where they may.

The letter goes on to explain that the information includes home utility bills, drivers license information, and credit card numbers. Certainly we are interested in what the district is reimbursing, and how much, but we have no interest in personal information or account numbers, as we attempted to make clear in our original request.

We hope the district has not spent a lot of money in attorney fees on this.

I have updated my spreadsheet comparison of three years of LISD teacher salary schedules, and am posting it in PDF format for easy viewing. Hopefully this will make more clear how the raises worked this year.

Basically the chart is lined up so that you can see what a given teacher on a given step earned in the previous year on the previous step, just by looking across. Likewise, you can pick a step that a teacher would have been on in 2008/2009 and follow that across to the right to see the raises they would have received.

With regards to steps and years, a teacher is placed on a step when they first join the district, based on their number of years of teaching experience. After that year, each year they teach, they will progress to the next step. (Though teachers are cautioned that there is no guarantee that next year's step will be the same as it is this year.)

To further illustrate how the steps work:

Teacher A has taught for LISD for many years. A is on step #25 this year, will be on step #26 next year, and step #27 the year after.

Teacher B has taught at other districts for a combined 26 years. He would start at LISD on step #25 this year, will be on step #26 next year, and step #27 the year after.

Teacher C is brand new to teaching. She will start at step #0, and progress to step #1 next year, and step #2 the year after.

Wednesday nights are normally my nights off from blogging, but I wanted to get something out here before too much more time goes by.

Back on August 4th, we reported based on a tip from a reader who is employed by LISD, that some LISD teachers may not be getting the advertised raise in salary. This information was confirmed by what we thought to be accurate salary schedules posted by the district on its website.

At the time, we contacted LISD to seek some clarification on the issue, but no matter how many times we asked in different ways, we could only get LISD employees to non-specifically deny the allegations while simultaneously refusing to address the numbers we were showing them in our spreadsheet.

It appeared to us, based on the years of experience shown in the salary schedules that some years were being combined into the same step. This meant that if the steps stayed the same, and the employee moved to the second year in the step, they would get no raise.

Only today, basically 15 days after I last sent them my spreadsheet and spelled out the scenario I thought would result in $0 raise did they finally manage to actually read my question and look at the spreadsheet I sent.

The answer, as it turned out, was that the salary schedules published online, and as part of the budget documents available to the public contain a step number and an "entry" number corresponding to the number of years of experience they have when they first come to the district. After that first year, the employee moves to the next step, regardless of the year numbers listed in the "entry" column. The language on the schedule from 2009/10 was confusing in that the example it gave didn't show that distinction. The example began with the second year of a step, then moved to the next step - consistent with my misunderstanding of the steps continuing to apply based on years of service.

At any rate, there are still some concerns on my part because the differences between the steps, and the resultant raise amounts are wildly different, and not in any discernible pattern. I'm glad to be able to tell you that it does now appear each teacher got a raise. I wish I could tell you those raises were good ones.

As I said, it's my night off, and I have places to be tonight. I'll come back and write more later about what the situation is with the teacher raises. I'll share with you some of what I learned, and the frustrating chain of emails that got me to this point.

But it's important that we get the facts right, and in this case we got some of them wrong. We have to take responsibility and get the information out immediately.

We were unable to attend and get video of tonight's LISD board meeting.

We are told that LISD repealed its random drug testing policy for students, a move that will save about $100,000 in the coming year, although they will retain the STAR counselors from the program.

The board voted unanimously to hire an outside firm to conduct a statewide and national search for a new superintendent.

I just wanted to put out a quick note on last night's Lewisville ISD Board Workshop regarding the hiring of a new superintendent.

First, I do have video, but there was no audio amplification there, and the public was kept at a distance that made it hard to hear the proceedings. Add to that some chattering among the members of the public that were there, and it may be hard to hear.

Second, I have attached a brainstorm list of things the board members came up with that they would like in a superintendent. This is JUST a brainstorm, and doesn't necessarily indicate what the board will eventually use in its search, but it should be an indication of what individual board members are thinking. To me, it seems like a tall order, but it can't hurt to aim high.

Third, although no votes were taken, or allowed to be taken, it does seem that the board will likely elect to go with an outside search firm. The district has three qualified internal personnel who could apply, and one has recused herself from that process. It will likely be made official during next Monday's board meeting, what course of action the board intends to take. The new superintendent, when hired, would probably take over on January 1st, 2011.

This post is partially retracted. It appears all teachers will get some raise, although not all will get a good raise. We finally received updates from LISD on 8/25/2010 explaining that the years of service shown in the salary schedules only apply to entry into the district. We'll be posting an update in a seperate post later, to make sense of the confusion.

Well, this is interesting. A reader points out to us that although the headlines read that LISD approved an average 1.18% raise for all employees, that figure is misleading.

It turns out that all administrative staff will be getting the raise, but if the published schedules are correct, some teachers may not.

The reason is that teachers are paid based on a salary schedule that only takes into account educational level and years of experience. As teachers complete each year of service, they progress to the next step, which accounts for their experience. When inflation adjustments need to be made, the entire scale is adjusted so that each step pays more than it did in the previous year.

LISD is not applying any inflation values to the scale for teachers this year, except in the entry level 0 step, which is $450 higher this year for Bachelor's and Master's teachers.

Since the steps for highly experienced teachers with 25, 27, 29, or 31 + years of experience do not progress to the next step with an additional year of service, these teachers will not get raises.

The district has policy of wanting to hire "green" from now on, and shed some of its more expensive experienced teachers, and this policy would seem to reflect that.

The consumer price index is increased by 1.1% for the 12 months ending June 2010.