Chapter 04 · The money
Follow the local tax dollar until it leaves, then see what the campus kept.
Recapture is Chapter 49 of the Education Code, not a nickname. AISD’s own pages say the district is property-rich and that hundreds of millions of local levy go back to the state each year. That is the wound’s fiscal expression. Selling buildings and parking librarian pay on fund balance are how a single year was closed.
Two enrollment counts appear in official and near-official sources. SOLATX does not pick a favorite. Both are labeled. Recapture is computed on attendance wealth, so a falling student count can raise wealth per student even when family income does not.
Recapture and enrollment, AISD tables
FY2026 adopted series from AISD’s 2026 Budget Process page. FY2014–15 opening point from the Recapture page ($181,118,956 at 84,191 students) — the year AISD uses when it says recapture grew “nearly 400 percent.”
Adopted recapture (millions)
Drawn in the browser from data/aisd.json. If the chart is empty, JavaScript is off; the table below still holds.
| Year on AISD table | Recapture | Enrollment |
|---|---|---|
| 2014–15 (Recapture page) | $181,118,956 | 84,191 |
| 2016 | $266,073,630 | 83,270 |
| 2017 | $403,324,244 | 82,766 |
| 2018 | $540,290,792 | 81,346 |
| 2019 | $665,251,676 | 79,787 |
| 2020 | $639,599,384 | 80,911 |
| 2021 | $706,687,156 | 74,982 |
| 2022 | $762,800,496 | 74,602 |
| 2023 | $900,910,768 | 73,384 |
| 2024 | $664,839,391 | 73,681 |
| 2025 | $777,158,149 | 72,272 |
| 2026 adopted | $715,523,373 | 72,303 |
AISD’s Recapture page lists FY2021–22 as $765,741,768 and FY2024–25 adopted as $821,055,366. The Budget Process table (used above for 2016–2026) lists $762,800,496 and $777,158,149. The 2025 ACFR reports $771.60 million Chapter 49 expense for the year ended June 30, 2025. SOLATX keeps the conflict visible instead of smoothing it. Recapture page · Budget Process.
Largest-payer fact, from AISD: in FY2023–24 the district remitted $467.8 million more than the second-place district (Pecos-Barstow-Toyah) and more than the next five combined. Independent write-ups of 2024–25 put AISD near a quarter of statewide recapture. “Property wealthy” is a ratio. It is not a description of the children in the building.
VATRE, surplus, and the local remainder
Austin voters approved a 2024 maintenance-and-operations tax-rate election (Proposition A). District materials described about $171 million in additional levy, of which about $130 million was estimated to recapture and about $41 million net to AISD — including a compensation adjustment. Raising local taxes in a Chapter 49 district is a leaky bucket. That is formula, not mood.
The Comptroller’s January 2025 Biennial Revenue Estimate put $23.76 billion as the 2024–25 ending general-revenue-related balance available as a beginning balance for 2026–27, on top of projected collections. The rainy-day fund has separately sat in the mid-to-high $20 billions. Those statewide balances did not become a CPI-indexed basic allotment. See inflation.
Same levy, different lines
Compensation figures are from the superintendent’s board-approved contract and TEA salary files. They are here because they are public, and because the librarian patch was scored at under $1 million.
| Line | Amount | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Superintendent base | $362,250 / yr | Contract §3.1, Feb. 2024–Aug. 2028, auto-raises on admin scale. BoardDocs PDF |
| Supplemental retirement | $36,750 / yr | Employer-paid, contract §3.6 |
| Business travel | Reimbursed, incl. rental car | Contract §3.3 |
| Average teacher base (2025) | $63,367 | New: $54,565; 6+ years: $67,722. Tribune / TEA |
| Proposed librarian reduction | ~$897k–$977,500 | 11.5 FTE / 23 campuses. Not executed. Funded from fund balance pending August replacement cuts. |
| Board of trustees | $0 salary | Volunteer board that adopts the budget and the contract. KUT on trustee role. |
These lines are already public. They are not a rumor. They are also not proof of a crime. They are the local remainder that still has to be scrutinized in the same year the district sells land and cuts campus time. An audit, in this sense, means: put the contract, the travel reimbursements, the property-sale assumptions, and the campus cut list in one board packet and leave them there until the numbers reconcile with a child in a classroom. Recapture is the state’s skim. It does not excuse an unexamined six-figure package or one-time real estate standing in for a formula.
A $977,500 librarian restoration from reserves is a real decision. It is also smaller than one superintendent compensation package (base + supplemental retirement) and smaller than a rounding error on recapture. That comparison is arithmetic. It does not replace Chapter 49 reform. It shows why the June vote felt like a bandage.
The superintendent led operations, facilities, and construction before the 2024 contract. The 2026–27 plan counts on the order of $60 million from selling or monetizing district property. Those two facts belong in the same scrutiny, not as a nickname, as a question: is land being used as operating revenue while the classroom is told to wait? Sources: contract PDF; AISD June 2026 budget letter; KUT / Chronicle on property sales.