Based on demographers’ projections of continued boom times, Forney ISD asked for record bond packages in 2006 and 2007. Voters caught up in the surge signed off, accustomed to a constant need for new schools.
“The growth was hand-over-foot,” said Laurie Barkham, the Forney Chamber of Commerce president. “Houses and roads — you couldn’t build them fast enough.”
Keeping track turned out to be a problem at official levels as well. The Forney school district owes the state $13.6 million for overpayment of operations funding and $4.1 million for facilities funding.
Barkham’s oldest son graduated among 186 students in 2004. Three years later, another son walked among 292 graduates — nearly six times the size of Barkham’s class at the old Forney High School a generation earlier.
In 2008, the boom went bust, with the district’s annual growth going from 20 percent or more to flatlining.
But no one — not district administrators or the district’s auditors — noticed that the state was still assuming rapid growth when it calculated how much money it sent the district. The disparity between state payments Forney was due and the amount it was receiving grew to 30 percent this year, when the Texas Education Agency demanded a plan for repayment.
Now, Forney ISD must pay for the miscalculations — a debt that may lead to cutting programs and staff in the recognized-rated district of just over 8,000 students.
Spending the funds
Forney doubled in size from 2000 to 2007 and has grown moderately since. However, the city is but a doughnut hole in the 76-square-mile Forney ISD, which stretches from north of U.S. 80 to south of Interstate 20. The North Central Texas Council of Governments estimates Kaufman County’s current population to be only 15 residents more than in 2008.
Census figures show that between 2000 and 2010, 14 area cities grew faster than Forney, including 10 in Collin County.
Fast-growth school districts are advised to overestimate attendance, so their annual allotment doesn’t come up short. But none of the other boomtown districts owe the equivalent of a third of an annual budget to the state.
That’s because while it is advisable to put the money in reserve until the attendance is verified, Forney spent the overpayment.
On the kids, as district officials are quick to point out.
Looking past any malfeasance, Forney offers a case study that advocates spending more money on education. In the years it reinvested its overpayment, the district rose from an acceptable rating to exemplary, the best possible.
Because the district also based hiring on inflated attendance estimates, its staff-to-student ratio improved significantly. With Forney also boosted by bond elections, students are equipped with laptops starting in the fifth grade, and most attend new or refurbished facilities — sticking to a neighborhood campus approach, without crowded classrooms.
“Their situation has shown that with the right direction educationally that adequate funding does have an impact on the ability to deliver the goods,” said James Damm, the Texas Education Agency monitor assigned to the district.
Damm is quick to differentiate between Forney and other troubled districts to which he has been assigned — defunct Wilmer-Hutchins and, more recently, Lancaster.
“The culture of the district is very positive; that’s the major difference,” he said. “In looking at Forney, their financial situation is equally as bad, but, with the culture of the district, there are positive solutions that can come out of this. They have a strong academic program, a strong instructional program. And they’re more than willing to do what needs to be done.”
As Forney digs in for the tough times, those in the business of educating are trying to draw hard lines, not wanting to give up those gains in the classroom.
But the amount of leverage the district will have with TEA officials who want the state’s money returned remains to be seen. The payback plan being negotiated over the next month will dictate the severity of Forney’s hardship.
Counting on growth
Because it built ahead of growth and took a stand against temporary portable classrooms, Forney ISD has room for 2,000 more students on the heels of the 2007 bond election. The district hopes the growth it originally projected eventually solves its problems. Locals say that won’t happen if the repayment plan impedes the district’s success.
“They want to move to Forney because of the school district,” said Barkham, the chamber president.
North Forney High School, a divisive issue during the period of rapid growth, is no less a part of the debate today.
The district’s $232 million bond in 2006 failed, not because voters didn’t see the need, but because of the debate to split the district’s single high school.
Getting across U.S. 80 on a handful of underbuilt roads was an increasingly formidable barrier to a one-school strategy. So North Forney High was recast and passed as a stand-alone item in 2007. It was staffed to offer all the same programs as Forney High, but its enrollment is far lower than anticipated.
Still, the district has not sold $37.5 million of other bonds approved over the course of a decade and six elections. And that will keep some of the pressure off the taxpayers.
“I don’t think anyone could have seen the collapse of the housing industry,” said Keith Bell, school board president. “But can you imagine how bad we would have looked if we had an elementary school under construction in 2009 and had to mothball it?”
Officials charged with the district’s future have little time to spend on what three top administrators who fled to the Birdville ISD last summer could have done differently. Mike Holland, retired from Magnolia ISD, was brought in as superintendent, and a TEA monitor was invited to the table.
The district has filed suit against Rutherford, Taylor and Co., the Greenville-based auditor that certified its bloated numbers.
The firm’s final audit showed a 20.5 percent increase in state funding between 2009 and 2010.
“Student population has continued in an upward trend in the District,” said the audit for the school year ended June 30, 2010. “The economic outlook for the area is for growth to be increasing at a rapid pace.”
In June, the district’s new auditor marked student growth at 2.2 percent.
The school board, which signs off on the audits, has undergone a crash course in school finance. No board member has resigned, nor is there any recall movement in the community. Voters will probably wait until the May election to decide whether they hold the board responsible. Bell stood with Holland during a recent three-hour public forum to discuss the debt.
“It’s reorganization, working through some attrition, and redistributing some duties and some responsibilities to live within your means,” Bell said.