EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — It has been painful several hours for the Socorro ISD community after the district’s Board of Trustees voted Wednesday night to lay off about 300 teachers and staff for the 2025-26 school year to address its financial crisis.
“I feel like I’ve just been punched in the gut. It’s just very disappointing and just very painful to know that, basically, our whole (fine arts) department was demolished and done away with,” Jessica Ramirez, a SISD fine arts specialist in music, said.
“They’re the unsung heroes, and yet they’re the ones that are sitting at the top getting paid high dollar, while our teachers are being cut from their jobs,” Alison Valles, SISD alumni who attended the meeting, and whose sister is a middle school band teacher, said.
“Ultimately, of course, it was very heartbreaking, to have to see the school board forced to make this decision because at this point, it was very evident that there was no other option to make but that one. It was heartbreaking to hear some of the information that was being put out there either by speakers or by school board members themselves,” Rosie Perez, president of the West Texas Alliance, said.
District officials at the meeting presented data showing that since 2016, previous SISD boards had approved expenditures that exceeded their allocated budget for that given school year.
The data showed how the district’s deficit continued to grow year over year as they continued to adopt higher expenditures until the current inflection point, where their actual deficit doubled from over $19 million in 2023 to over $50 million in 2024.
“Fixing a budget is linear, but it’s very painful. For the last decade, in the first five years, you had about 300 million in revenue and expenditures. Then it’s like you started losing your discipline. Then it was okay to spend a little bit more than you allocated because then you started adopting deficit budgets in 2017,” Michal Hinojosa, one of the two state-appointed conservators, said.
Hinojosa highlighted how the Board’s financial mismanagement coincided with year-over-year enrollment growth until the current school year when SISD saw a decrease in student enrollment of over 500 students.
“You cannot pay your mortgage with your credit card. You have fiscal responsibilities as a judiciary, as an elected official in this county,” Hinojosa said.
District officials estimate Wednesday’s decision will generate approximately $30 million in savings for the district, leaving $8 million still to be addressed as they work to tackle their deficit and build up the district’s financial reserves.
“This is really the beginning. And I think once again, there will be continuous discussion about the systems and the processes and the structures that we need to take care of. To address further going forward, what are the areas that we might need to look at,” Andrew Kim, the second state-appointed conservator, said.
Four positions on SISD’s Board of Trustees will be up for election on May 3, paving the way for a new-looking Board to finalize the district’s budget for the 2025-26 school year.
“But what they (SISD’S board) did was maintain control. Control of their destiny. This is going to be difficult, but they’re going to make it because of their professionalism. And there’s going to be a new board. There’s going to be at least three new board members that will have to pick this up. And actually, those three new board members are going to have to adopt the budget,” Hinojosa said.
Perez said their focus now lies on assisting any of their members who will be on the chopping block of this decision.
“Should they receive a job offer from another district, we’ve already worked out with Socorro, for them to be allowed to be released from their current contract. We’re also working on just finding some support for them throughout the community, and questions that they may have with regards to their retirement, to their years of service, should they choose not to continue in public education. So that’s how we’re going to be here for our members,” Perez said.
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