Pearland ISD Trustees on June 9 approved a 2026-27 budget with a projected $2.5 million deficit district officials hope to eliminate through adjustments.
“Our expenditures are more than our revenues, and we have to make adjustments if need be, to make sure we land on a balanced budget,” Superintendent Larry Berger told board members. “A projected budget deficit is a time to act. It’s not a time to panic.”
State law requires school districts adopt a budget based on anticipated expenditures before the fiscal year ends on June 30.
The coming year’s budget estimates revenues of $231 million vs. expenditures of $234 million.
“The projected budget deficit does not mean that the district is headed toward financial trouble,” Berger said. Rather, he said, it is a planning indicator based on current assumptions on revenues and expenses.
“It doesn’t mean that we can’t plan and take action during the year to fix that, to change that,” he said.
Built into the budget is more than $6 million contingency fund for emergencies.
“If we don’t have any, then it becomes part of the surplus,” Berger told the board. “This is what we have to present to you because we don’t know if we will have emergencies or not.”
Since many factors impacting revenues — taxable property values, student enrollment and average daily attendance — are not yet known, balancing the budget is a moving target.
“The budget is a financial plan based off assumptions and estimates at a specific point in time,” Berger said.
The school tax rate is expected to be adopted in August.
