Frisco ISD’s Board of Trustees were presented with recommendations from the Priorities-Based Process concerning the 2017-18 budget and decided on a firm to help the search for a new superintendent at Monday evening’s board meeting.

After some discussion, the Board selected Jenny Preston Educational Consulting to guide the district in the search for Dr. Jeremy Lyon’s replacement.

Chief financial officer Kimberly Pickens presented 59 recommendations compiled by the Stakeholder Committee, with areas ranging from central administration, class sizes and schedules, to transportation/custodial/energy management. The projected savings from all the focus groups add up to approximately $9,478,486. Some include:

• Reduce discretionary per pupil allotment (PPA) by 15 percent
• Eliminate K-12 Library Aide positions $750,000 and reduce technology specialist positions
• Eliminate 9th grade PSAT
• Reduce Central Administration costs to achieve a five-year savings of $12.5 million
• Increase fees for summer athletics camps
• Implement an operations fee for middle school and high school athletics
• Eliminate funding for national travel for academic competitions
• Reduce partner campus shuttles
• Reduce custodial positions
• Reduce summer operating hours for energy conservation
• Charge fees for parking passes at high school campuses

The suggested recommendations will be a component of the budget which will be finalized in May and voted on in June.  

Despite proposed cuts being made to the budget, the district is the fastest-growing school district in Texas and attracts families from all across the nation.

“I did research, a lot of research. I spoke to my friends living in Frisco, and I did my due diligence back in Chicago,” mother Ashwini Mahankali said in an NBC5 article. “The main reason was the school district.”

Updated: The video recap initially posted with this story was taken down as the full video did not get exported. This will be corrected Wednesday.