Frisco ISD staff and community members met on Thursday at the CTE Center to discuss budget recommendations and share cost-saving strategies for the 2017-18 school year.

“The recommendations are recommendations only,” Frisco ISD Chief Financial Officer Kimberly Pickens said in email before the meeting. “Those recommendations will be vetted by a working group of staff leaders, then to district administration, and then to the School Board for final consideration.”
Seven focus groups were established to evaluate money usage and potential cuts in the following areas:

• Compensation
• Class Size / Class Schedules
• Campus Budgets & Support Staff
• Central Administration
• Extracurricular Activities
• Transportation / Custodial / Energy Management
• Revenue Generation

Some of the recommendations presented Thursday are:

• Shift responsibility for payment of professional association dues to staff
• Assess total cost and participation levels of elective courses and compare against cost of core classes
  • Use results of this analysis to determine the possible reduction of low participation/high cost electives
• Evaluate library aides and technology specialists/support and reduce where appropriate
• Eliminate all high school to high school transportation, except to the CTE Center
• Prioritize and promote energy conservation
• Increase cost of athletic camps, court rentals and gym rentals
• Eliminate food service energy use during summer
• Trademark school logos
• Restructure credit recovery and online classes

Final recommendations will be presented to the Board of Trustees in April.