Socorro ISD board approves plan to lay off about 300 employees
An estimated 300 teachers and staff in the Socorro Independent School District will lose their jobs at the end of the year after the school board on Wednesday approved a plan to cut $38 million from next year’s budget.
The board voted 3-2 to accept recommendations from Interim Superintendent James Vasquez to lay off employees, eliminate its elementary fine arts programs and increase class sizes.
Trustees Michael Najera, Cynthia Ann Najera and Alice Gardea voted in favor of the recommendations while Paul Guerra and Marivel Macias voted against them. Trustees Pablo Barrera and Ricardo Castellano were absent.
The vote came after a nearly five-hour meeting filled with pleas from teachers, parents and students hoping to save the elementary school fine arts programs as the once-growing district attempts to claw its way back to financial solvency.
But the board also received a sobering presentation from the administration and state-appointed conservators Manny Hinojosa and Andrew Kim that demonstrated years of board-approved deficit spending that has brought El Paso’s second-largest school district to a fiscal precipice.
“As difficult as this decision is, it's necessary,” Vasquez said. “If we don't make the necessary cuts for the next school year, if we don't have money in our fund balance to cover the deficit, we will be insolvent, in other words, means we would have to declare financial exigency, which is equivalent to bankruptcy.”
Hinojosa, who pointed out he has the authority to overrule decisions by the board and superintendent, said he would watch the board’s actions. “You cannot pay your mortgage with your credit card,” he said. “If you're insolvent, the state takes over and they replace the board, and they replace the superintendent.
“You see how close you are to the edge right now. You asked for us to come help you, and that's what we're doing here. And I have the authority to overrule your decisions. I don't want to do that, but I can and I will.”
The district will decide who will be laid off by March 7 and notify employees by April 1, Interim Chief Human Resources Officer Celina Stiles said during the meeting.
Vasquez said even without the elementary fine arts program the district will still need to teach the subject to its students.
“We've been getting it done expertly by our fine arts teachers,” Vasquez said. “We want to work to see how we can support our regular (education) teachers to be the same.”
Hundreds of SISD employees, parents, students and supporters of the elementary fine arts program packed the SISD board room — and filled an overflow room — to ask trustees to keep the elementary fine arts program and urge them to find alternatives to the layoffs.
Some suggested reducing salaries and cutting high level administrative positions.
Others expressed concern that getting rid of the elementary school fine arts program would worsen the district’s already poor attendance and push parents to enroll their students in other districts.
“There is no doubt that a comprehensive academic experience that includes the arts is and will always be best for every student. The minute you choose to cut fine arts programs and eliminate those positions is the minute SISD is no longer the best choice for my kids,” said Lluvia Salas, a parent and former SISD music teacher.
Some talked about the difficulties students with disabilities face and how changing teachers or increasing class sizes can exacerbate them.
“Laying off our teachers further compounds the challenges faced by students with disabilities … Increasing the student-to-teacher ratio will increase anxiety in our children, especially my son, and will make it harder for the remaining teachers to provide individualized attention to the children,” said Diana Serano, the parent of an Eastlake High School special education student.
“I want to request you to not fire my teachers. My teachers are important in my life, and I'm tired of having substitutes,” her son David Serano added.
Before the meeting, Vasquez told El Paso Matters the 300 layoffs are an estimate and said he wasn’t prepared to say the exact number of employees that will be cut or how many of them would be teachers.
“We’re hoping that teachers who have been considering retirement might do that, which could reduce the need for layoffs,” he said.
District administrators will meet with campus leaders next week to look at enrollment projections and staffing needs as the district plans to increase class sizes at elementary and middle schools, Vasquez said. Campuses with declining enrollment will also come up with plans to reduce staff.
Staffing needs amid declining enrollment
Vasquez said Socorro ISD has been “overstaffed” for years, and in an effort to make the district more appealing, has invested heavily in salaries and health benefits to retain and attract teachers, adding to its expenses.
Ahead of the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, the board approved higher raises than what was recommended by district administration.
These changes raised the average SISD teacher salary from over $55,200 a year in the 2019-20 school year to nearly $86,000 a year during the 2023-24 school year, according to data reported to the Texas Education Agency.
Socorro American Federation of Teachers President Veronica Hernandez denounced the idea that raises contributed to the district’s budget issues and the need for layoffs. She said she could not tolerate blame being placed on the salary increases over the last two years for the district’s financial troubles.
Heading into the 2023-24 school year, the district hired more staff in anticipation of an additional 700 students.
Instead, enrollment declined by 500 students to 47,200, Vasquez said. Enrollment declined by another 600 students this school year and is expected to continue declining to about 43,000 students by 2034, he said.
Penny swaps, hiring freezes and state funding
Even with the layoffs, Socorro ISD will likely still need to find more revenue to stay afloat.
The district projects it will have a $38.3 million deficit during the 2025-26 school year. By laying off employees, closing existing vacancies, changing staffing formulas and redesigning programs the district expects to cut the deficit by $30.3 million, leaving it with an $8 million deficit.
The district is considering asking voters to approve a “penny swap” later this year that would allow it to move property tax rate money earmarked for repaying debt to use in general operations. If approved, the swap wouldn’t change the tax rate but would allow the district to generate an additional $28 million in revenue, Vasquez told El Paso Matters.
The plan to reduce the district’s budget by $38 million assumes teachers continue leaving the district at the same rate as in recent years.
During the 2023-24 school year, the most recent data available, about 11% of SISD teachers resigned or retired. At that rate, the district will lose about 220 by the next school year, according to district figures.
The has implemented a hiring freeze for all but a few specialized positions such as special education teachers, Vasquez told El Paso Matters. That means between attrition and layoffs, Socorro could have 400 or more fewer teachers next year than this year.
The plan also assumes that the state won’t increase school funding or raise its basic allotment of $6,100 per student – a number that’s been unchanged since 2019.
Even if lawmakers agree to increase school funding as planned by the Texas Legislature, Socorro ISD will use the additional money to rebuild its reserves, which have been depleted in recent years by budget deficits.
Last year, the SISD school board adopted a $479.6 million budget with a $22 million deficit for the 2024-25 school year. The deficit has grown to $24 million since then, Vasquez said.
“We need to build up our fund balance. At the end of this year, we’ll only have 17 days (of operating revenue) in our fund balance, and we need to get back to the 75 days in our policy,” he said.
In an effort to cut costs, the district reduced its employee health plan contribution leading to reductions in their take home pay and has removed vacant positions from the budget.
The district took out a $25 million loan in November to make payroll when its cash reserves were low and while it waited to receive a scheduled payment from the TEA.
Vasquez said the district will have to take out another loan this summer because it won’t have the cashflow to make the payment out of its revenues.
This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
