The budget outlook for San Antonio schools is grim all around, but districts on the South Side are feeling the pinch the most.

School systems on the ever-burgeoning North Side are managing to give raises and stave off cuts to the classroom, but they're not adding new programs either, and district leaders say the future is bleak. San Antonio's urban districts are already cutting everywhere they can, scaling back on field trips, eliminating teaching positions and even closing schools.

School leaders all over Texas, whether they hail from urban, suburban or rural districts, are hoping state lawmakers will intervene to relieve the pressures they say ballooning operating costs have put on their districts.

Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, chairman of the Select Higher and Public Education Finance Committee, said he recognizes the concerns and that providing relief is at the top of his list for the coming legislative session, which begins in January.

“Inflation has got everyone hurting. They've got a good point. We've got to do something,” Branch said.

Most local districts are developing their budgets now, and some of the proposed cost-saving measures include streamlining staff, dropping programs and limiting trips to student competitions.

The hardest-hit districts are those losing students and, as a result, state revenue. But even fast-growing districts, such as the Northside and North East districts, that receive additional revenue with each new student are feeling the pinch.

The problem, educators say, is this: Transportation, utility and food costs are up, making it more expensive to educate each student. But the amount of money the state gives districts per student has remained the same.

Districts' officials say inflation, coupled with state and federal education mandates, are creating a financial squeeze.

Basically, districts are limited to a certain amount of money per student, but that amount varies by district, in some cases significantly. If districts want to boost their overall revenue, they have to add more students to their rolls or increase their tax rates.

The highest that districts can set their operations tax rate without securing voter approval is $1.04 per $100 of assessed property value, and all but two local districts are at that rate.

Northside Independent School District, which proactively made about $38 million in cuts several years ago in anticipation of tight budget times, has an operations tax rate of $1 but this year plans to up it to $1.04. Alamo Heights Independent School District is at $1.02, but officials are considering $1.03.

Of the five San Antonio districts that held elections in November seeking voter approval for a higher tax rate, only Edgewood was successful. Referendums in the Harlandale, San Antonio, Somerset and Southside districts failed.

Somerset, as a result, is considering eliminating its choir program and campus field trip funding and limiting travel to students competitions, such as band and JROTC, among other changes.

Harlandale Independent School District, even after recently closing an elementary school and eliminating 4 percent of its staff through attrition, is turning to the classroom for even more savings for the coming school year.

District officials are proposing that elementary school librarians, in addition to their regular duties, teach the district's approximately 180 gifted and talented students next year.

Instead of busing students to one of four “magnet” campuses for gifted and talented instruction once a week, librarians at the 13 elementary schools would be trained to teach the students. The change would save the district $186,000.

Interim Superintendent Robert Jaklich told trustees there was no other option for cost-savings.

“We looked high, low, all the way around, wherever we could go,” Jaklich said.

Harlandale is projecting it will lose about 75 students and is on track to become the county's poorest school district — based on preliminary property values — replacing Edgewood Independent School District.

Harlandale board President David Abundis said that if voters don't approve a tax increase in November, the district will be forced to make deeper classroom cuts next year — unless lawmakers boost funding.

“They definitely have to look at it, because they haven't given us more money,” he said. “Everyone's being hit by transportation (costs). ... We're just getting eaten up.”

Harlandale's budget bind is due in part to the school board's decision to use money from savings over the past few years to pay for employee raises. Typically, school districts rely on their savings account — or fund balance — for one-time expenses, not recurring costs.

Next year, the district projects it will have a $1.3 million deficit — even after closing Scheh Elementary School and eliminating, mostly through attrition, about 100 positions. That would put the fund balance at about $4.5 million — or about two weeks' worth of operating costs, though the state recommends districts have about 21/2 months' worth of operating money in case of an emergency.

Having a low fund balance also hurts a district because officials draw from it to pay bills while they're waiting for revenue to come in. Without enough money to pay vendors or make payroll, the district would have to take out loans.

Kathy Bruck, Harlandale's executive director of curriculum and instruction, said some of the cutbacks, such as streamlining the gifted and talented program, might end up benefiting kids.

“We're making the best of it,” Bruck said. “We're seeing that there could be some really nice outcomes with it, but it's more work for sure.”

For instance, Bruck said, librarians are masters at operating the kind of distance learning equipment that could be used to take students on “virtual” field trips to anywhere in the world. Last year, students took such a trip to the North Pole to visit Santa Claus, she said.

The students' guest appears on a television or projection screen and can see and hear the students, and vice versa.

Principal Diane Tudyk of Stonewall-Flanders Elementary School said such virtual field trips will be necessary next year, as well as more “reverse field trips.”

“If we can't go out, there's a petting zoo that can come to your school,” Tudyk said. “There's art teachers that come and bring arts to your school.”

San Antonio Independent School District, while facing financial challenges as well, has not yet started carving its classroom programs.

The district, even before voters shot down the tax referendum, started eliminating positions through attrition and had plans to close schools because of a years-long enrollment decline — one that is expected to continue next year. SAISD closed six campuses at the end of the past school year.

Including the 276 fewer positions the district plans to have next school year, SAISD will have cut some 805 positions districtwide over the past three years, according to a budget presentation in mid-June.

“I really feel good about what we've done in expenditures, because we've cut a lot,” Superintendent Robert Durón said. “I do not feel good, though, about not being able to give a pay raise because of the market that's out there, with the cost of living (and) inflation.”

Even with the cuts, early budget projections indicate the district will have an approximately $3 million deficit next year — which school officials call breaking even. Contributing to the shortfall is the food service program, which is expected to operate in the red by $4 million.

Food costs are up, student participation in the meal program is down and kitchens at low-enrollment schools are creating operating inefficiencies, said Steven Bassett, the associate superintendent who oversees the budget. As a result, the district is considering doing away with free breakfast and lunch — currently, all students receive free meals — for those who can afford to pay.

In Edgewood, which projects to lose students again next year, Superintendent Elizabeth Garza said the budget situation would be worse were it not for the tax increase voters approved in November. Even then, Garza said, state lawmakers need to revisit school funding.

“I think it is no longer about rich school districts and poor districts,” Garza said. “It's about all districts and that, basically, education is just woefully underfunded.”