Cy-Fair ISD faces $31.7 million budget shortfall, weighs tax hike

Cy-Fair ISD entered its latest budget round still facing a $31.7 million shortfall, a gap large enough to affect staffing, classroom services and the tax rate trustees may soon ask Harris County voters to consider.

At a May 21 budget workshop in the Mark Henry Administrative Building boardroom, trustees were set to examine the district’s next proposed budget as Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District tries to balance enrollment decline, higher operating costs and long-term stability across 96 schools in northwest Harris County. CFISD says it is Texas’s third-largest district, serving nearly 118,000 students, and that scale makes every adjustment in salaries, transportation, classroom supplies, maintenance and support services harder to absorb.

The district said its FY 2025-26 general operating shortfall had improved by $2 million from the prior update because some expenses were shifted to grant funds and because of the expected teacher incentive allotment. Even so, the district’s financing picture remains tight. In April, CFISD projected a much larger $73.9 million shortfall for FY 2026-27, underscoring how quickly the gap could widen if trustees do not find new revenue or make deeper spending changes.

One option under discussion is a voter-approval tax rate election, or VATRE. District officials have said Texas school districts can raise the maintenance and operations tax rate by five cents without an election, but anything beyond that requires voter approval. CFISD could potentially seek as much as 12 additional pennies, a decision that would affect homeowners as well as the district’s ability to keep pace with operating costs. If trustees want a November ballot measure, they would need to select an auditor by July 3 and call the election by Aug. 17, leaving only a narrow summer window to decide how far to go.

The pressure points are familiar. CFISD said enrollment was down 2.7% as of October 2025 compared with the 2024-25 school year, and the district said its 20% local optional homestead exemption cut FY 2025-26 property-tax revenue by $72 million. Officials also pointed to statewide inflation, which they said rose 24% from September 2019 through August 2025 without being fully reflected in funding formulas.

For FY 2026-27, CFISD said the proposed budget includes $4.6 million for Virtual Pathways implementation, $3.7 million for miscellaneous expenditures, $2 million for textbooks not covered by the Instruction Materials Technology Allotment, $2 million for preventative chiller maintenance and $1.1 million for fuel inflation. Teacher incentive allocations are expected to drop by $8.7 million, and employee raises are not currently included in those expenditure projections.

The district has already shown how difficult the tradeoffs can be. In the 2025-26 budget adopted June 23, 2025, CFISD restored bus transportation for all students within district boundaries, approved raises for all staff for the 14th consecutive year and set starting teacher pay at $65,000. Officials said a prior budget survey drew 1,200 responses, and the superintendent said the district had already cut more than $14 million in non-personnel areas. With 90% of the district budget tied to staff, the next round of decisions is likely to hit personnel costs, campus support and the day-to-day stability of the district most directly.