News

This is where you will find news about the Finance Department and other events that may affect the school district.

New Travel Rates Effective September 1, 2005

Via the Texas Appropriations Act, new travel rates have been approved for fiscal year 2005-2006.

• Lodging - the new lodging rate is $85.00 per night.  This new rate is strictly for lodging rates offered by commercial establishments.  Other lodging expenses, i.e. mandatory parking fees, hotel occupancy taxes, energy adjustments, etc., are considered incidental expense and are excluded from the lodging rate. 

• Meals - the new daily rate for meals is $36.00 per day.  The new rate will be allocated as follows:  Breakfast $7.00, lunch $11.00 and dinner $18.00.

• Mileage - the new mileage rate is $0.405 per mile.

Budgets will not be increased to compensate for the new travel rates, consequently, administrators and principals will need to monitor their expenditures to ensure they stay within their appropriate budget(s).

Change in Fiscal Year:

The District has elected to change the start of its fiscal year from September 1 to July 1 of each fiscal year.  What does this mean?  Upon returning to school during the first part of August, the new budget will already have been adopted and your July and August expenditures will be recorded in the correct fiscal year.  Principals, administrators, teachers etc. no longer have to worry about the fiscal year coding on purchase orders,   This change should make it easier to operate your campus or department at the beginning of each school year.

Bi-Tech - Change in Financial Software:

The Finance Department, along with other business related departments, are undergoing a transition from one financial software to another.  The Information Design, Inc. (IDI) software is being phased out and is being replace by Bi-Tech.  The effective date for this new software was July 1, 2005.  This has been a monumental task for the various departments involved and we continue to have growing pains.  As with any task of this magnitude, we expect to have problems during the infant stages.  We ask that you please bear with us as we work diligently to solve these problems.