BISD moving forward despite leadership change, budget cuts
After eight Brownsville Independent School District board meetings and an additional five budget meetings, BISD is getting ready to move forward.
BISD officials are getting ready to approve a budget that is $30 million dollars less than the $500 million dollars they’re currently operating on.
Interim Superintendent Carl Montoya spoke with Action 4 News for the first time since being appointed last week.
“We want to protect our classroom instruction and employees,” Montoya told Action 4 News.
Montoya was appointed interim superintendent of BISD about a week ago.
He has already made some changes to his staff.
Grants Administrator Dr. Sylvia Atkinson is interim human resources manager and Ismael Garcia is the interim chief financial officer in lieu of the suspension of the current CFO.
“Superintendents do that – they develop a team they feel they’re going to work with – so those were the two changes that I made, and it was done in a very positive way,” Montoya said.
Montoya said the district currently has about 7,500 employees and the district has no plans to fire anyone, instead they are “trimming the fat.”
“We don’t have as many buses running,” Montoya said. “We’ve tried to consolidate routes to try to save money. The other thing we’ve done is, as people have retired or left the district, we have looked at the position, if it’s something we need to fill or something that once it leaves we can absorb.”
State Representative René Oliveira, D-Brownsville, said one of his concerns with such severe budget cuts to education is the loss of early education programs through out the Rio Grande Valley.
However, Montoya said this won’t be the case at BISD.
“We’re lucky that the Pre-K will remain intact,” Montoya said.
BISD is the largets school district in the Rio Grande Valley and the 17th largest school district in the state.
The school district is looking at about $18 million dollars in budgets cuts for the 2011-2012 school year alone.
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