Financial allies in tough times: superintendents and business directors collaborate even more closely when revenues fall far short of needs - year-round school schedule

School Administrator, August, 2003 by Kimberly Reeves

Superintendent Rick Berry came to the fast-growing Cypress-Fairbanks school district 11 years ago because of its reputation for high-grade instruction and strong staff, but it would be his school board's financial decision that would divide his community and dominate his agenda for the next five years.

The Cypress-Fairbanks school system, located northwest of Houston, began as a German farming community so small that children traveled an hour by bus into the city to go to high school. Today it's a booming bedroom community of eight high schools and 71,000 students, with room to grow. When Berry arrived, developers were putting homes on the ground so fast the district was about to outpace the state tax cap on facilities. Paced with financial constraints, the school board decided to give year-round education a try to maximize use of the district's existing buildings.

Cy-Fair, as it's known to locals, would be one of the largest school districts in the nation to move its schools to a year-round schedule, and one of the few in Texas to try a multitrack calendar for financial rather than academic reasons. Early estimates suggest Cy-Fair could save $90 million in avoided facility costs. Berry, a former financial officer, put his business director to work to verify the estimates.

Even when the debate was heated--and there were plenty of board meetings with passionate parents on both sides of the issue--Berry approached the implementation of year-round education with a methodical hand: He studied the academic performance of the school district' s pilot program and tried to build consensus in the community. He hired a then-Big 8 accounting firm to help his staff build various financial models. And Berry brought along his chief financial officer from the Arlington, Texas, school district to figure out how to maximize the dollars and resources for children.

A Financial Fit

Berry had met George Hobson when both were school business officials. Berry was deputy superintendent in Arlington while Hobson was the assistant to the chief financial officer in the larger, neighboring Fort Worth district. Berry hired Hobson when he was named superintendent in Arlington in 1988, and the two honed their common fiscal philosophy in the crucible of a district facing a tough tax cap.

While most school districts in North Texas were capped at $1.50 per hundred-dollar valuation, Arlington voters back in the 195 Os chose a tax cap of $1.20. An election in the early 1990s to raise the cap had failed. As the school district grew, its financial capacity was stretched to its limit. Berry knew the skills Hobson learned in Arlington would be valuable in Cy-Fair.

"We had some really significant budget issues, especially that last year, Berry says. "A lot of the reason why I brought George with me to Cy-Fair was because I knew that he understood my philosophy. He knew how to work the budget on both the revenue and expenditure side, and he was experienced exploring all possibilities as to how to get the most Out of every dollar."

He knew how to cut programs, but he also knew how to generate new district revenues through appraisal protests. Hobson knew how to run the numbers on administrative costs and how to build the fund balance. That cool-headed approach--an even-handed presentation of the facts--would be the way Berry presented year-round education.

"The curriculum was up to the educators," Hobson says. "What I always tried to do was to provide the specifics on the financial impact of year-round, the savings that we could derive from the calendar. The board never doubted the financial impact numbers we gave them. The concern was always how year-round education divided families."

Arlington's tax cap paled in comparison to the overwhelming issue of shifting an entire community to a year-round calendar, Berry admits. By the time the task was completed, a board election coup had left the anti-year-round education lobby in power, and district officials faced with the daunting task for dismantling year-round education even as the school district continued to grow.

So Berry and Hobson went back to the drawing board and drew up a plan to add portable buildings to handle the campus overflow while the school district worked on its next bond issue.

"As soon as the board turned around, we had to come up with options to financially and physically handle the growth immediately," Hobson says. "We started purchasing portables to enlarge the size of our campuses, which helped us in the interim as we moved from year-round back to a traditional calendar. It took two of the largest bond elections that the district ever had--$765 million in construction--to catch up with our buildings."

Strong test scores are a given in a suburban district like Cypress-Fairbanks. What set Berry apart-and landed him his job (although he retired in June) was his ability to balance the finances without sacrificing the academics. Berry says that takes focus and a common direction understood by the leaders in both curriculum and finance.