The Levelland ISD Board of Trustees held a special meeting Wednesday to hold a public hearing on the proposed tax rate and budget.
Chief Financial Officer Teresa Montemayor ran through some brief changes geared toward payroll. The budget was adjusted to include a 3% raise that all LISD employees would be seeing this coming year.
The tax rate to support all changes was at $0.9742. This is a 15 cent drop from last years rate of $0.8646.
A budget amendment was made to make room for an estimated $180,000 additional state dollars which will be moved into student transport, plant maintenance and facility services, as well as data processing services in equal amounts.
Passed through the legislature and going into effect September 1st is a law in the state of Texas requiring an armed officer be stationed at every campus for public schools, a request for an exemption for Levelland ISD was also made.
It was explained that in case funding was unavailable or there were not enough qualified candidates, an exemption from the state could be issued. The exemption request can also be made for districts such as LISD as they have implemented a Guardian Program.
The district and the Levelland Police Department are currently working together to full cover five campuses with resource officers. While the new year begins for the district in September, the new year does not begin until October for the city. In turn, the exemption was requested to combat the lapse in time.
Contract upgrades to replace portions of the schools security cameras and access control systems were passed as well. For cameras, 5G security was awarded the bid for $80,000, with server updates from Weaver Technology set for $62,000.