Frequently Asked Questions

All data on this site comes from three official Humble ISD sources:

Adopted Budget — Approved by the Board of Trustees at a public meeting. This is a public document.

Board-Approved Amendments — Each amendment is approved at a public Board meeting. The cumulative amended budget is published monthly.

Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) — Independently audited financial statements required by Texas Education Code to be published publicly. This is the most authoritative record of actual spending.

All source documents are public records available from Humble ISD. If you find a discrepancy, please reach out — accuracy is the most important thing on a transparency site.

Adopted Budget: The spending plan the Board officially approved before the school year began. This is the legal authority to spend money.

Amended Budget: Districts adjust their budget throughout the year as circumstances change — enrollment shifts, state funding updates, grants arrive, or unexpected needs arise. Every amendment must be approved by the Board at a public meeting. The amended budget is the final authorized spending level.

Actual Spending (ACFR): What the district actually spent, as independently audited and published in the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. The district typically spends less than the amended budget authority — unspent authority doesn't automatically get spent.

The General Fund is Humble ISD's main operating budget — it covers teacher salaries, campus operations, transportation, administration, and most day-to-day expenses. The charts on this site show the General Fund.

Child Nutrition Fund: Funded by federal meal reimbursements. Pays for cafeteria operations and school meals. Kept separate so federal nutrition funds are tracked independently.

Debt Service Fund: Pays interest and principal on bonds issued to build or renovate school buildings. Funded by a separate property tax rate. Not included in General Fund totals.

Capital Projects Fund: Tracks spending from bond proceeds on construction. Separate from operations.

The government-wide totals in the ACFR combine all funds. For 2024-25, government-wide expenses were $726M — much larger than the $535M General Fund figure because it includes debt payments, nutrition operations, and capital projects.

The 2025-26 adopted budget was $543.8M. By January 2026, the amended budget had grown to $562.2M — an increase of $18.4M across multiple Board meetings. Budget amendments are normal and expected. Common reasons include:

Encumbrance carryforwards: Unspent purchase orders from the prior year are re-budgeted. The large September 2025 amendment (+$11.3M) was primarily this.

TRS on-behalf funding: When the state makes pension contributions directly on the district's behalf, both revenues and expenditures are amended to reflect this pass-through.

Grant awards: New grants require both a revenue and expenditure amendment.

A larger amended budget is not automatically a problem. Watch whether actual spending ultimately exceeds the amended budget — that would signal a true overspend. For 2024-25, actual spending was $8.4M under the amended budget.

The projected operating deficit is about $18M (expenditures minus revenues). This sounds alarming but has important context.

Humble ISD carried $204 million in audited fund balance (reserves) into FY2026. The district is deliberately drawing down a portion of those reserves to fund one-time expenditures. The Board has explicitly budgeted this as a planned use of reserves — it's labeled as such in the budget documents.

That said, taxpayers should watch this trend. Repeatedly drawing down reserves without rebuilding them is a warning sign. In 2024-25, the district actually generated a $19.7M surplus, adding to reserves. Whether the same happens in 2025-26 won't be known until the ACFR is published in fall 2026.

Humble ISD is funded through local property taxes and state funding. For 2025-26, the adopted General Fund budget shows roughly:

Local property taxes: $156.9M (~28.9%) — collected from property owners in Humble ISD's boundaries

Local TIRZ: $7.3M (~1.3%) — tax increment reinvestment zone revenue

State funding: $366.2M (~67.4%) — state formula funding, including TRS on-behalf contributions

Federal: $1.2M (~0.2%) — federal program grants

Texas's school finance system is designed to equalize resources. Higher-value districts send some local tax revenue to the state ("recapture"), which redistributes it to lower-wealth districts. Humble ISD's position in this system affects its net state funding amount.

The Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) is the official audited financial record of a school district. It contains:

• A full accounting of all revenues and expenditures, broken down by fund and function code

• An independent auditor's opinion on whether the financial statements are accurate

• Balance sheet, debt schedules, and other financial position data

Timeline: The fiscal year for Texas school districts ends June 30. After that, an independent CPA firm audits the district's books. Under Texas Education Code, districts must complete and publish the ACFR within 150 days of fiscal year-end — which means by approximately November 27 of each year. For FY2026, expect the ACFR by late fall 2026.

As of FY2025, Humble ISD has $1.997 billion in total outstanding bond obligations — that's $1.296 billion in principal still owed, plus $700.8 million in future interest payments already scheduled. Combined, that's roughly $9,779 per resident in the district.

That per-capita figure has more than doubled since 2014, when it was $4,653. The district's population grew about 7.7% in the same period. Debt grew 126%.

School districts borrow money for capital projects — new buildings, major renovations, and large equipment — through bonds. In Texas, school bond elections require voter approval. Humble ISD voters have approved multiple bond packages over the years, authorizing the district to borrow for facilities.

Bond debt is completely separate from the operating budget. It is not paid from teacher salaries or transportation funds. Instead, it is funded through a dedicated property tax rate called the I&S (Interest & Sinking) rate, which appears as a separate line on your property tax bill. This rate exists solely to repay bondholders.

Because the district keeps issuing new bonds while still paying off old ones. Each new bond election authorizes new borrowing, which adds to the outstanding total even as older bonds are retired. The net effect has been consistent growth: from $882M in 2014 to nearly $2B in 2025.

The "total outstanding" figure also includes all future interest payments — not just principal. So even if no new bonds were issued, the total would remain high until those scheduled interest payments come due over the remaining life of existing bonds.