8. Figures that disagree across sources¶
HISD's own documents, and HISD's figures against TEA's and the bond market's, disagree with each other on several points. They are listed here rather than silently picking one. The second edition (Oct. 8, 2026) traced most of the recapture figures to specific runs in TEA's revision history; an exact reconciliation would need HISD's recapture payable and settlement records. The rest remain open. See the audit summary.
| Item | Values found | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 recapture paid | $49.1M (TEA Summary of Finances, Final); $56.9M (audited ACFR and TEA's PEIMS actuals); $44.5M (HISD's own final amended budget); approximately $65M (a bond official statement); $55.5M (a Texas Tribune news report) | Mostly traced, not reconciled (second edition). TEA re-issued the 2024-25 report 41 times. The ~$65M matches TEA's preliminary runs of Sept. 2024–Feb. 2025 ($64.1–64.9M); the $55.5M matches the Near-Final runs of Sept. 19 and Oct. 17, 2025 exactly; the audited $56.9M is within $1.4M of the run current when HISD closed its books (Sept. 30, 2025: $55.5M) but matches no run exactly; $49.1M is the final settlement. HISD's $44.5M budget figure matches no TEA run. See notes/sof_history.md. |
| FY2024 recapture paid | $0 (ACFR and PEIMS) versus $326.5M budgeted in HISD's original FY2024 budget | Explained (second edition). HISD adopted its FY2024 budget in June 2023, when TEA's first projection showed $335.2M of recapture for 2023-24. The November 2023 tax-compression law (SB 2, 88th Legislature, 2nd Called Session) reduced it to $0. |
| Tax year 2025 tax rate | $0.8783 (HISD's tax-information page) versus $0.8489 (May 2026 bond official statement, Tables 1 and 5) | Mostly explained (recheck, Oct. 12, 2026). $0.8489 was the rate recommended at the Sept. 11, 2025 board meeting (agenda item 9). On Oct. 15 the board adopted $0.8783, adding $0.0294 of one-year "disaster pennies" (HISD's tax page; KPRC). The two figures differ by exactly that amount, so the bond statement shows the September rate. TEA's 2025-26 Summary of Finances uses the higher M&O rate ($0.7116), with 8 enrichment pennies. Still open: why a May 2026 disclosure omitted the October rate; the same table also lists FY2025 at $0.8783, which the ACFR gives as $0.8683 |
| FY2025 tax rate, within the ACFR itself | 0.7116 / 0.8783 in the statistical summary table versus 0.7016 / 0.8683 in the notes and levy table of the same report | The statistical table row appears to have been populated with the following year's rate by mistake |
| ACFR's own "cost per pupil" historical series | Found to be computed inconsistently: FY2020-FY2022 figures include bond-refunding escrow payments that should have been excluded as non-operating; FY2023 is overstated by about $107M on a recomputed basis | See notes/acfr.md for the recomputed, consistent series |
| July 2025 maintenance-tax note issuance | $20.555M (an ACFR subsequent-event note) versus $114.39M (the actual bond market official statement for that issuance) | The ACFR note's text appears to have been carried over from an earlier, smaller issuance |
| FY2025 TIRZ revenue received by HISD | $54.5M (audited ACFR) versus approximately $38M (a bond official statement) | |
| State tax rate cited in HISD's own budget transmittal letters | $1.035 / $1.045 | The budget documents' own detailed tables elsewhere say $0.8683 / $0.8783 |
| FY2026 state Foundation School Program aid, within HISD's own budget book | $110.5M in the narrative text versus $238.2M in the accompanying revenue table | |
| FY2025 budget's stated "Average Daily Attendance" | 179,592 | That figure is actually HISD's enrollment count; TEA's certified refined average daily attendance for the year was 156,871 |
| FY2025 ACFR, as posted on HISD's own website | About 95 of 200 pages are scanned images with no machine-readable text (requiring OCR to read); the first page of the Management's Discussion and Analysis section appears to be missing; the FY2023 report is served under a filename labeled "FY24" | |
| FY2019 recapture | $265.2M (audited ACFR expense and PEIMS) versus $185.1M (TEA's final settlement, May 2022, and the ACFR's own later statistical table) | Traced (second edition): HISD's expense is within $0.7M of TEA's Near-Final estimate current at year-end close ($264.5M, Sept. 2019); TEA's final settlement two and a half years later was $80.1M lower. The documents retrieved do not show how the difference was settled. |
| FY2020 cost per pupil, within the FY2020 ACFR | $11,009 printed versus $11,580 from the report's own inputs | Open |
| Beginning General Fund balance assumed in adopted budgets | FY2020-FY2023: understated by $89M to $275M relative to the audited prior-year balance. FY2026: overstated by $51.8M ($799.9M assumed vs $748.1M audited) | Open for FY2020-FY2023; it made projected year-end reserves look lower than they turned out (see Section 9). FY2026 was corrected in HISD's February 2026 budget amendment |
| FY2022 budget adoption date | "June 20, 2021" on HISD's posting (a Sunday) versus June 10, 2021 on the hearing deck | Open |
| FY2026 ending General Fund balance (not yet audited) | $785.2M (adopted budget, June 2025); $752.0M (February 2026 amendment, and HISD's April 2026 forecast); $730.0M (June 2026 amendment, and HISD's May 2026 forecast); $558.9M "maintenance and operations fund balance" (HISD's June 2026 tax-rate notice) | The first three are successive estimates of the same measure. The tax notice's figure is a different measure: the balance net of the cash needed to run the district until the first state aid payment. Open until the FY2026 audit |
| Outstanding debt, mid-2026 | $1,282.1M (Series 2026 Official Statement, after the May 2026 refunding, excluding $22.0M of lease-revenue obligations); $1,305.2M "outstanding bonded principal" (HISD's June 2026 tax-rate notice) | $23.1M apart; the documents do not say what the notice's figure includes. Open |
| Payments to tax-increment zones (TIRZ) | $75.5M (FY2024) and $56.1M (FY2025), General Fund "payments to TIRZ" expenditure (audited statements) versus $48.4M and $37.9M of HISD taxes paid into the zones (ACFR statistical section, line 9000) | Open. The expenditure line may include increment on HISD's full levy and timing effects; the ACFR does not reconcile the two |
| FY2027 budget adoption date | June 25, 2026 (HISD's adopted-budget posting: "Date Adopted by Board: June 25, 2026") versus "Jun 11, 2026" (HISD's Oct. 8, 2026 tax-rate adoption presentation, slide 2) | The June 11 vote was postponed to June 25 (press reports); the presentation appears to give the originally scheduled date. Open |