Two Starr County school districts just went opposite directions on payroll. Roma ISD is the largest employer in its city. Rio Grande City Grulla ISD has a bigger payroll still, though it publishes no headcount. One froze base salaries and offered one-time stipends instead. The other raised salaries outright. Their own budgets show why, and it comes down to a number most people never look at.

ROMA and RIO GRANDE CITY, TEXAS

The financial conditions are buried in hundreds of pages of financial data, including proposed budgets and adopted budgets, from Roma ISD and Rio Grande City Grulla ISD. Every number below is printed in those documents, or is simple math on those numbers. Where the papers do not answer a question, we say so instead of guessing.

Here is the short version.

Roma's money went down. Its total revenue fell $752,230 and its payroll fell $1,753,500. Its budget includes no increase to base salaries; the only extra payment is a one-time stipend of $300 to $750, which does not carry forward into next year's pay.

Rio Grande City Grulla's money went up. Its revenue rose $8,127,939 and its payroll rose $6,173,991, which the district says includes an actual increase to base pay, not a one-time stipend.

The honest reason is not that one district cares more about its people. It is attendance.

Texas school finance does not primarily reward a district simply for how many students enroll. A major share of formula funding is driven by average daily attendance, how many eligible students are actually in class day to day. It is one of the most consequential numbers in Texas school finance, and it is where these two districts split.

Roma ISD plans for 5,916 students next year. It plans for 5,310 of them to be in class. Both numbers are printed in its own budget. Subtract one from the other and the gap is 606. That is how many enrolled students are missing on an average day.

Rio Grande City Grulla's attendance figure is basically flat, at least on the line the district labels as attendance. Roma's is falling. That difference, and not headcount, is responsible for the revenue gap that drove the two payroll decisions.

FALLING ATTENDANCE

Roma's enrollment hit bottom in 2022 at 5,621 students. Since then it went UP 6.9 percent, to 6,008. The new budget projects it about 1.5 percent below that audited figure, at 5,916.

So even with next year's budgeted dip, enrollment is not collapsing the way the phrase "declining enrollment" makes it sound.

What fell much harder is attendance. In 2022, 93.79 percent of Roma students were in class on an average day. By 2025 it was 90.51 percent. That is the lowest rate in ten years but one.

Enrollment went up. The attendance rate dropped more than three points. Those are two different problems, and only one of them is getting talked about.

WHAT IT COSTS

The budget does print revenue per student on its public meeting notice, $12,217 from the state and $1,782 local, a combined $13,999, though it never says which enrollment count those are divided by. That is the only per-student rate Roma's own documents print, so it is the one we are using below as a scale comparison, not as a calculation of actual state revenue. One caution on it: if that rate is spread across every enrolled student rather than just the smaller group who show up on an average day, then the true dollar value of a single day of attendance is probably somewhat higher than $13,999, not lower.

Now run the scenarios.

Using the district's published $13,999 combined state-and-local revenue-per-student figure only as a scale comparison, Roma's budgeted attendance for next year, 128 students below its last audited figure from 2025, would correspond to about $1.8 million. That is not a calculation of the exact additional state revenue Roma would receive from improving attendance; the actual amount would have to be calculated through the Foundation School Program formulas.

If attendance had held at the 2022 rate, Roma would have roughly 239 more students in seats, which on that same scale comparison would correspond to about $3.3 million a year. Measured from 2016 instead, the gap is about 151 students, or about $2.1 million on the same basis. Both are real. Which one you use depends on which year you think was normal.

Read that second one twice: on that same scale comparison, getting kids back in class corresponds to about $3.3 million a year.

Now compare it to everything else in the budget. Roma's entire drop in state money this year is approximately $604,230. Roma's entire employee stipend package is $595,450.

On that simple scale comparison, the financial magnitude associated with the attendance gap exceeds either the $604,230 year-over-year decline in state revenue or the $595,450 employee stipend package.

And Roma's budget assumes it gets worse. Next year the district's budget puts attendance at 5,310 against 5,916 enrolled, or 89.76 percent. The audited figure for 2025, 90.51 percent, is built differently, on average daily membership rather than a PEIMS headcount. The two are not the same ration, but both point the same way.

SO WHY IS ATTENDANCE FALLING?

The documents do not say. Not one page of them gives a reason. The only line that comes close is the chief financial officer's letter, which mentions "declining student enrollment." Taken on its own year, that holds up: enrollment is budgeted to fall from 6,008 to 5,916, a drop of 92 students. What the letter does not mention is the bigger picture behind that one year. Since the 2022 low point, enrollment is still up 6.9 percent. Both things are true. This year is down. The trend since 2022 is up. The letter only tells you about the first one.

Several things could be driving this, and honesty requires putting them on the table.

Attendance fell across the country after 2021 and has not come back in most states.

The baseline you pick changes the whole story. Roma's 94.26 percent in 2021 is the highest figure in its entire ten year series. COVID era attendance counting inflated that number in a lot of districts. Measured against 2016 instead of 2022, Roma's attendance is down only 1.79 points, not 3.28.

Roma's own audit shows unemployment in the city rose from 7.7 percent in 2024 to 10.4 percent in 2025.

Families moving back and forth across the river has been a fact of life in Valley schools for decades, in good years and bad. And there is always illness, weather and transportation.Whether immigration enforcement operations account for the projected attendance drop is an open question for the district.

FINANCIAL STATE

Roma's total revenue is slated to be $752,230 next year. State money fell $604,230.

You may have heard about House Bill 2 and new school money out of Austin. Roma's budget does list $7.9 million in teacher and staff allotments, but only $2.2 million of that is new HB 2 retention money. The other $5.7 million is the Teacher Incentive Allotment, a program Roma already received last year at almost exactly the same amount. And even the new money did not land on top of what Roma already had. Regular formula funding fell by more than the new allotments added. The pot got smaller and was reshuffled.

Roma's payroll then fell $1,753,500. That figure needs its basis stated. Measured against the amended 2025-2026 budget, payroll is down $1,753,500. Measured against what Roma now projects it will actually spend this year, it is down $320,300. Measured against the budget the board adopted in August 2025, $74,738,000, payroll is actually up $177,500. All three numbers come out of Roma's own books. A $93,190,500 spending total is headed "Approved Budget FY2025-2026" on page 1 of the new book and "Budget Amend #1" on page 9. Neither matches the $90,874,500 in the budget the board actually approved last year.

And the district's chief financial officer does explain the reduction, in a letter on the front of the budget: "To adapt to declining student enrollment and reduced revenues, we proactively lowered total expenditures through strategic staff attrition and operational efficiencies."

Attrition means fewer positions, not smaller paychecks. That is an important distinction and it is in the district's favor. What the letter does not address is what happened to the people who stayed.

Attendance drives state money. State money is about 80 percent of Roma's budget. And payroll went down.

WHAT TEACHERS ARE BEING OFFERED

Page 11 of Roma's budget is headed "2026-2027 New Hire Guide for DOI & Certified Teachers." It shows what the district offers a teacher walking in the door.

A teacher with one year of experience was offered $52,500 last year. This year the offer is $51,000. That is $1,500 less.

It is not one bad row. It is 35 of the 36 steps on the chart, and across the whole chart the average step is $752 lower.

Here is the mechanism, row by row. The new pay chart is the old pay chart moved down one line, with only two additions: $1,000 added at year 3, and $2,500 added at year 5. Those are the same two experience marks where House Bill 2's Teacher Retention Allotment applies.

House Bill 2 provides $2,500 for an eligible classroom teacher with at least three but fewer than five years of creditable experience, and $5,000 for an eligible teacher with five or more years, in a district Roma's size. The Texas Education Agency requires those allotments to be passed through as salary to the teachers who generate them. Roma's new-hire schedule shows changes at those same experience thresholds, but the new-hire chart alone does not establish how the full Teacher Retention Allotment is incorporated into the salaries of eligible returning teachers. The district should explain how its salary schedule and employee placement implement the $2,500 and $5,000 statutory amounts.

And Roma prints the proof itself. That schedule carries its own column headed with a percent sign, the district's own math on what each step changed. The top row carries no percentage at all. Of the 35 that do, 33 read 0.00%. The only two that do not are year 3, at 1.89 percent, and year 5, at 4.54 percent, the same two spots where the state retention money lands. Roma is not hiding the freeze. It published it.

So what does a teacher who is already there and coming back actually get?

The 30 page budget contains no raise line of any kind other than the one time stipend pool. The district's own audit says the average Roma teacher made $60,304 in 2025. The state average was $63,751. Roma sits slightly lower at $3,447 below the state average.

TWO TEACHERS, TWO LADDERS

Roma runs two teacher pay charts.

A certified teacher starts at $51,000.

A teacher hired under the district's District of Innovation rules, which let a Texas district hire a teacher without standard state certification, starts at $44,000.

That is a $7,000 gap on day one. At ten years in, the gap is still about $7,100.

The certified chart climbs to $80,246. The uncertified chart stops at $55,030.

STIPENDS

This budget funds no increase to base salaries. The only extra payment is a one-time stipend.

For full time staff it runs from $300 to $750. Part time staff get half that.

A full time custodian's published band works out to about $19,788 a year, which is derived from the rate, hours and calendar Roma prints, at eight hours a day. The floor of that stipend is $300. That is 1.52 percent.

Roma ISD employs somewhere between 1,001 and 1,500 people. It is the single largest employer in the city of Roma. Starr County government is second, and it is not close.

LAST YEAR THERE WAS A RAISE. 

Roma's 2025-2026 compensation plan carries two pages headed, in those words, "Proposed Pay Raise 2025-2026." They are in the approved budget book too, at pages 26 and 27, listed in its table of contents as "2025-2026 Proposed Raise All Pay Grades."

For hourly staff the increases ran from 30 cents an hour to 58 cents an hour, with a floor of 30 cents, so the lowest grades came out a little above 2 percent.

A grade 1 position at 4 hours a day, 185 days a year: $222. A grade 2 position at 8 hours, 220 days: $528.

The same two pages indicate that administrative and professional scale the increases, from $1,204.84 at Pay Grade 1 to $2,718.22 at Pay Grade 12.

Teachers are not on those pages. They sit on the separate step schedule.

The 2026-2027 book has no pay raise page at all. The only raise language left is the footnote printed under each pay plan, the one saying increases depend on "the annual pay raise approved budget." This year there is no such line. There is the one time stipend, $300 to $750, and nothing else.

To be fair, this is not a surprise. Roma's revenue fell $752,230, and the district is already at the highest tax rate it can adopt without sending it to the voters. So is Rio Grande City Grulla: its worksheet puts its voter-approval rate at $1.1529 and its proposed rate at exactly $1.1529. Neither can raise its rate without a vote. They are not equally boxed in, though. Roma's proposed rate is already at its applicable voter-approval threshold; additional M&O taxing capacity may remain under state law, but reaching it would require a vote. 

 

A NEW $15,000 STIPEND, AND SMALLER CHECKS FOR COACHING

Comparing the two compensation plans line by line turns up the sharpest thing in this budget.

Start with what was added. This year's plan creates an Instructional Specialist Stipend of $15,000. There was no such stipend in last year's plan.

The job itself is not new. "Instructional Specialist" sits on Pay Grade 7 of Roma's administrative and professional plan, 220 days a year, in both books. The daily rates did not move either. $308.76 at the low end, $367.81 in the middle, $426.86 at the top, identical in 2025-2026 and 2026-2027. The published band for this job is frozen exactly like everyone else's.

The $15,000 sits on top of it.

At the middle of that band, 220 days at $367.81 comes to about $80,918 a year. Add the stipend and the same job pays about $95,918, an increase of about 18.5 percent above the midpoint base salary, for a title whose printed pay scale did not change. 

On the Other Extra-Duty Pay page, the next largest figure is $7,500, for two school elections positions now paid hourly, and after that the Lead Registered Nurse at $7,000. The Instructional Specialist line is double the first and more than double the second. It is double the standard $7,500 high school head coaching stipend. Among printed athletic stipends only Team Tennis matches it, at $15,000, and the head football stipend is listed as Negotiable with no figure at all. A high school teacher coaching a UIL academic event goes down from $1,200 to $750. 

The two Prep stipends say "pending funds availability" in the line itself. The A-rated and B-rated campus administrator stipends carry a footnote making them subject to funds availability. 

The reasons for the unconditional $15,000 stipend are unclear. The funding source of those stipends is also unclear. It is possible that a district-level instructional specialist carries real, increased responsibilities. However, no head count and no justification has been offered by Roma ISD's leadership. It is the largest newly added stipend identified in the plan. 

Also new: a Head Librarian stipend at $1,500, three Prep Mentor Teacher stipends at $1,000 to $2,000, and a Prep Program Manager stipend at $1,000 to $2,000. Both Prep lines carry the words "pending funds availability." The $15,000 does not.

Now what happened to everybody else.

A high school teacher coaching a UIL academic event went from $1,200 to $750.

A middle school UIL coach went from $1,200 to $600.

An elementary UIL coach went from $840 to $450.

The sports announcer stipend went from $5,000 flat to an hourly rate capped at $2,000.

The high school AP coordinator went from $1,500 to $750, and the required hours were cut from 50 to 25.

The journalism sponsor went from $1,500 to $750, on the same terms.

VASE art sponsors, four Skills USA sponsor lines and the BPA sponsors all went from $750 to a $450 cap, with the hours cut from 25 to 15.

GTN extra duty went from $4,500 to a $3,000 cap.

Summer school pay for paraprofessionals and auxiliary staff went from a flat $1,200 to $10 an hour.

There is a structural change underneath the CTE and Skills USA lines that is easy to miss. Last year they read "min 250 hours, if less $30 per hour." This year they read "max 250 hours, $30 per hour." So compensation for these line items is now capped.

Two things were cut out. The ADSY stipend, $1,500 for two positions. And the Special Education Administrator stipend, $5,000.

Roma dropped the $5,000 special education administrator stipend but added two new teacher lines: $1,000 for dyslexia teachers and $1,000 for a special education teacher without ARD duties. Those two are genuinely new. But the $5,000 self contained unit teacher stipend and the $1,500 and $750 aide stipends were already in last year's plan at the same amounts, so this is a smaller shift toward the classroom. 

NOW THE PART THAT IS ONLY FAIR TO SAY

Roma did something with that stipend that deserves credit.

The district could have paid a flat 1 percent stipend to everybody. Instead it set a floor of $300 and a cap of $750. Roma printed that comparison itself, on page 10, so the choice was made with the numbers in front of it.

The design moved $54,874 toward hourly and support staff. As groups, instructional aides gained $23,441 as a group. Cafeteria staff gained $8,463. Clerks gained $5,657. Maintenance gained $4,434. Custodians gained $4,366.

And the money came off the top. Administrators got $5,057 less than a flat 1 percent would have paid them. Campus professionals got $4,486 less.

As a share of pay, the custodian's $300 is 1.52 percent. A teacher's is 1.00 percent. An administrator's capped $750 is 0.76 percent, half thee custodian's rate.

Roma ISD's most recent audit came back clean. No findings. No material weaknesses. No questioned costs. Low risk auditee. It holds a Superior rating on the state's financial system, a national GFOA reporting award, and the Texas Comptroller's Transparency Star.

The district also forecasts well. For 2025 it budgeted a $7.1 million deficit and finished under budget at $6.9 million. General administration came in $251,362 under budget. Its budget book ties exactly to its audited fund balance.

And class sizes got smaller. In 2016 there were 13.45 students per teacher district wide, by its audit. In 2025 there were 11.59.

Roma also spent 83.7 percent of its state at risk money directly on at risk programs, and 87.8 percent of its bilingual money on bilingual programs, according to that same audit.

HEALTH COSTS

The insurance screen in the packet shows the district paying $550 a month toward coverage, and $0.00 toward dental, vision, disability and critical illness. To be fair, $550 a month is not a low contribution by Texas standards. The honest question is whether it is flat. The page carries two coverage profiles, one semimonthly and one monthly, in a column headed Employer Contribution Amount. Each works out to $550 a month. Nothing in the 30-page packet says whether the amount changes by pay grade. If the $550 contribution is uniform across all benefit-eligible employees, the same employer contribution applies regardless of salary or pay grade.

THE OTHER STIPENDS 

A master's degree is worth $2,500, $2,000, or nothing at all, decided by the date you finished it. Grandfathered from 2015, it is worth $2,500. If earned by September 1, 2025, it is worth $2,000. Earned after that date, it is worth nothing this year, and next year only if the money is there. Two teachers with the same degree, in the same subject, in the same building, paid differently because of a calendar. The footnote makes next year contingent on "funds availability."

A high school head coach for baseball, softball, volleyball, basketball, soccer, wrestling, golf, swimming or track gets a $7,500 stipend. Two lines pay far more: a single combined Team Tennis and Spring Tennis position at $15,000, and three First Aid Coach positions at $11,000 each. The head football coach is listed as "Negotiable," with no dollar figure printed at all, in both years. Two football coordinators get $9,500 and seven football varsity assistants get $7,500, which means those assistants are paid the same as most head coaches. The high school head cheer position gets $2,500. A middle school head coach gets $2,500. The middle school head cheer positions get $750.

The Marching Band Director receives a $17,500 stipend. A middle school head band director gets a $14,000 stipend. The head coaching and directing stipends themselves are unchanged. The sports announcer went from a flat $5,000 to an hourly rate capped at $2,000. Football filming and two fine arts sound stipends became hourly caps, the PAC and multipurpose line drops from $2,500 to $1,500. Scoreboard extra duty went from two positions to one. And a new $1,500 Band Choreography and Show Design stipend was added. 

These stipends apparently reflect increased responsibilities of the positions, but the reasoning behind the stipends is for decision makers to explain to the public.

NOW LOOK DOWN THE ROAD

Rio Grande City Grulla ISD announced raises.

Total revenue rose $8,127,939. State money rose $8,124,193.

Payroll went up $6,173,991. That is about 76 percent of every new dollar the district took in. The district did not borrow any new money this year, and neither did Roma. 

Rio Grande City Grulla also announced something new: its school board approved a $2,000 pay raise for every district employee for the 2026-2027 school year. This is different from Roma's stipend. Roma's extra pay was a one-time payment. Rio Grande City Grulla's own announcement does not call this raise one-time. Here is why that distinction matters: back in December 2025, the district gave everyone a one-time $500 payment for staying on the job, and it clearly labeled that one as one-time. It did not use that label for the new $2,000 raise. That is why this reads like a real, lasting increase to base pay, not a stipend. The raise helps explain part of the $6.17 million rise in payroll. But the budget does not say how many employees the district has, so there is no way to know exactly how much of that $6.17 million came from the raise itself, versus new hires, benefits, or other pay changes.

So why did one district cut payroll while the other raised it? The answer again appears to be attendance.

Roma's daily attendance number is down 2.35 percent. Rio Grande City Grulla's is almost flat, down only 0.19 percent. But these are not measured the same way. Roma's number compares to its last audited attendance figure, meaning a number that was checked and confirmed. Rio Grande City Grulla's compares one budget to the next.

You might read that and think Rio Grande City Grulla is holding on to its students while Roma is losing them. It is actually the opposite. One line in Rio Grande City Grulla's own budget, labeled "PEIMS ADA," falls 3.65 percent. That is a bigger drop than Roma's 1.53 percent decline in total student headcount. That 1.53 percent figure itself compares two different things, Roma's audited average daily membership for 2025 against its budgeted PEIMS enrollment for next year, the same kind of audited-versus-budgeted mismatch already noted above for attendance. The district should clarify what that line actually counts, enrollment or attendance, because the label is unclear, and the answer changes how a reader should understand the budget.

And here is where Rio Grande City Grulla has a real question to answer.

Page 4 of its budget shows $117,022,252 going out against $111,452,169 coming in, a gap of $5,570,083. Add in its child nutrition fund, which covers school meals, and the gap grows to $7,217,548. Last year, that same page showed a gap of $7,872,847.

Look only at day-to-day operations, before any money is moved between funds, and here is what you find. Roma's last two budgets came up short by $5,345,500 and $3,873,230, for a two-year total of $9,218,730. Rio Grande City Grulla's came up short by $7,872,847 and $7,217,548, for a two-year total of $15,090,395. By this measure, Rio Grande City Grulla's gap is about $5.9 million bigger than Roma's.

But look instead at what actually comes out of each district's savings, the bottom-line number each district reports itself, and the order flips. Roma pulls $7,345,500 and then $6,373,230 out of savings(fund balance), a two-year total of $13,718,730. That total is higher partly because Roma also moves $2,000,000 and then $2,500,000 into a separate fund for construction. Rio Grande City Grulla pulls $6,627,847 and then $6,667,857 out of savings, a two-year total of $13,295,704. That total is lower partly because of $1,245,000 and $549,691 the budget counts as extra, one-time money. The budget does explain where that money comes from: "hold harmless" payments under the district's agreement with Mesteno Windpower, a wind energy company, making up for tax money the district lost under a deal that caps how much the company's property can be taxed. By this measure, Roma pulls about $423,000 more out of its savings than Rio Grande City Grulla does.

One more thing to know about Roma's numbers from last year, because Roma publishes more than one version of that year, and it affects both totals above. The $5,345,500 and $7,345,500 figures both come from the "amended" column in this year's budget book, meaning the budget was updated after it was first adopted. The budget the school board actually adopted back in August 2025 showed a smaller day-to-day gap of $2,411,000 and a total draw from savings of $6,911,000, with a $4,500,000 transfer to construction instead of $2,000,000. Roma now expects the year will actually end with a $5,725,050 draw from savings(fund balance).

So, in short: Rio Grande City Grulla's day-to-day operating gap is the bigger one. Roma pulls more money out of its total savings, partly because Roma is also paying for construction.

There are two real differences between these two districts.

The first is which way the money is heading. Rio Grande City Grulla's income is going up. It took in $8,127,939 more this year and still budgeted a shortfall. Roma's income is going down, by $752,230, and Roma is already charging the highest tax rate it is allowed to charge without asking voters to approve a higher one.

The second is what each district tells the public. Roma prints the actual amount of money it has saved up, called its fund balance. That balance is falling, from $34,125,307 down to a projected $22,027,027 over these two budgets, a drop of about 35 percent. Here is something worth knowing: if you try to get from $34,125,307 to $22,027,027 by simply subtracting the two amounts Roma budgeted to draw down, the math will not match. That is because Roma carries its balance forward using what it now expects it will actually spend this year, $5,725,050, not the larger $6,373,230 it originally budgeted. Budgeted and projected are two different numbers, and Roma uses the smaller, more current one to carry its balance forward. That $22,027,027 figure is printed on page 1 of Roma's budget, and it is what lets a reader judge whether spending down its savings is sustainable. Rio Grande City Grulla, on the other hand, only prints how much its fund balance changes, never the total fund balance itself. That means there is no way for a reader, or an employee, to know whether the $13.3 million pulled from savings over two years is a safe cushion being carefully used, or a cushion that is running out.

There is one more number in that budget worth watching. Rio Grande City Grulla budgets for collecting 91 percent of the property taxes it is owed.  Rio Grande City Grulla collected 93 percent of its tax levy in 2024, 86 percent in 2023, and 83 percent in 2025. So 91 percent is the official, certified number, not a guess the district made up. However, if Rio Grande City Grulla does not collect 91 percent of its tax levy, and instead collects 83 percent(like it did in 2025), the budget shortfall would grow by roughly $1.6 million more, across both of the district's funds.

 

WHAT BOTH DISTRICTS ARE STUCK WITH

Neither district has an easy unilateral tax-rate solution.

Roma collects about 79 cents on the dollar of what it bills each year. It is owed $13,636,459 in back taxes, which is 156 percent of an entire year's levy.

Three things have to be said about that. It is chronic, not collapsing. 2025 was actually better than 2024 and about the same as 2016. Counting collections from prior years, Roma eventually brings in close to 90 cents on the dollar. Roma is also at the highest tax rate it can adopt without sending it to the voters. Its budget shows an operating rate of $0.70720 per hundred dollars of value against a state set compressed rate of $0.56890, which leaves a few cents of enrichment legally available but only through an election. Without one, there is no local lever left to pull.

Meanwhile, the district's tax notice shows a $0 school-tax liability for the representative homestead example used in that notice. Both districts get 80 to 88 percent of their money from the state.

Roma's savings are shrinking. Its unassigned fund balance, the part with no strings attached, fell from $32.9 million in 2022 to $21.9 million in 2025. That is a drop of nearly $11 million, or 33.3 percent.

Counting everything, though, Roma still held $34.1 million in total general fund balance at the last audit. Roma is definitely not broke- but it is spending down. The budget projects a total fund balance of $22.0 million by August 2027. 

The reality for both school districts is that managing taxpayer money is a delicate balancing act. Money must be spent on educating children. Districts cannot hoard money, but they also need to keep a healthy fund balance(for rainy days). 

THE QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERS

For Roma ISD:

What does the district attribute the attendance decline to, and what is it doing about it?

Why does the budget assume attendance gets worse next year?

How is the $1,987,500 Teacher Retention Allotment incorporated into the salaries of the eligible classroom teachers who generate it, and how does Roma's compensation system implement the $2,500 and $5,000 statutory amounts? It may well be paid as a separate distribution that a budget organized by department would never show. That is normal and permitted. But nothing in 30 pages says so.

For Rio Grande City Grulla ISD:

What is the district's total fund balance?

What is Rio Grande City Grulla's actual fund balance, and how many more years can it absorb a deficit of this size?

How much of the $6.17 million payroll increase is attributable to the newly approved $2,000-per-employee raise, and how much reflects additional positions, benefits or other compensation changes?

Why does Social Work Services fall 48.4 percent while Security rises 13.1 percent?

Where are the district's salary schedules published, if not in the budget? The budget prints no pay plans, no stipend tables and no employee counts for a payroll that is 83 percent of all spending.

The 91 percent collection rate is the county collector's certified figure and the worksheet requires it. But 2025 came in at 83 percent. What happens to the budget if it lands there again?

What drove the 59.2 percent jump in debt service paid out of operating money?

THE BOTTOM LINE

Two districts. About $208 million of spending. Roughly 15,000 students. Together they almost certainly employ more than 2,000 people, though Rio Grande City Grulla publishes no headcount, in a district where income per person is $18,829.

The number sitting under all of it is attendance. Roma's own audited books say enrollment is up from its 2022 low, and attendance is down to its lowest rate in ten years but one. The district budgets it falling further still. On the district's published per-student revenue scale, that attendance gap represents millions of dollars of financial significance, although the exact Foundation School Program revenue effect would require a formula-level calculation. Rio Grande City Grulla's projected attendance is somewhat less clear. Either school district may address school attendance gaps by implementing virtual education. 

Whatever the exact dollar amount, Roma's attendance trend is financially significant, it is worsening in the district's own projection, and the budget materials do not explain why. Both boards meet in public. Elected members have an opportunity to address these questions.

The Documents

This story comes from seven documents.

Four are the core budget and audit papers, 297 pages in all: Roma ISD's 2026-2027 budget and compensation plan, adopted by its board August 25, 2026, Roma ISD's audited annual financial report for the year ended August 31, 2025, and Rio Grande City Grulla ISD's adopted 2025-2026 and proposed 2026-2027 budgets.

Three more were obtained separately, and they are what made the year over year comparisons possible: Roma's approved 2025-2026 budget book, its approved 2025-2026 compensation plan, and its account level budget ledger for 2025-2026.

Every figure attributed to last year, including the "Proposed Pay Raise 2025-2026" pages and the 2025-2026 stipend lists, is printed in those two approved documents. The benefit figures and object codes come from the ledger, which ties exactly to the approved book's $90,874,500 expenditure total.

The $2,000 per-employee pay increase for Rio Grande City Grulla ISD came from the district's own August 6, 2026 announcement, posted on its website at myrgcgisd.org. The contrast with its December 19, 2025 one-time retention incentive comes from the same website.