Editor\u2019s note: Transcript provided by CoverGov and Cambridge Artificial Intelligencer<\/a>.<\/p>\n Keller ISD trustees unanimously approved a $346.1 million budget for the 2026-27 school year at the June 25<\/a> special meeting, delivering a spending plan that includes teacher step pay increases, a 1% pay raise for all other staff and a small projected surplus.<\/p>\n The $346,084,328 proposed budget<\/a> includes projected revenues of $346,450,813 and a projected surplus of $321,485.<\/p>\n Deputy superintendent John Allison and chief financial officer Pamela Stranathan presented the budget to the board, which mirrored the plan first shared with trustees on June 11<\/a>.<\/p>\n Officials added that the final property value and tax data will not be available until July or August. Allison and Stranathan expressed confidence in their projections.<\/p>\n \u201cUsing the templates that we have been provided, we are taking an estimate at this time and feel pretty confident with our estimate,\u201d Allison said.<\/p>\n The June 25 posted agenda includes a taxpayer impact statement<\/a> that shows the Tarrant Appraisal District\u2019s median-valued Keller ISD homestead rose to $258,793 from $258,000. The tax rate remains the same, so the estimated property tax bill increases to $1,954.41 from $1,948.42.<\/p>\n The budget covers three required funds: general, debt service and child nutrition. Officials noted the debt service fund has remained largely stable, while the child nutrition fund reflects a modest increase tied to a transition to a new food service vendor.<\/p>\n Three highlights stood out in the general fund expenditures:<\/p>\n Step increases are built into the district\u2019s pay system and bump an employee\u2019s compensation up based on reaching certain milestones.<\/p>\n Board President John Birt took the opportunity to commend the finance team and district leadership \u201cfor not only bringing a balanced budget, but one that potentially has some surplus associated with it,\u201d Birt said.<\/p>\n To learn more about how the transcripts that informed this report were created, visit Cambridge Artificial Intelligencer<\/a> and CoverGov<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Eric Zarate is a freelance journalist. If you believe anything in this account is inaccurate, please email us at news@fortworthreport.org with \u201cCorrection Request\u201d in the subject line.<\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/07\/11\/keller-isd-board-eyes-the-2026-27-budget-which-includes-a-surplus\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=660825&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/07\/11\/keller-isd-board-eyes-the-2026-27-budget-which-includes-a-surplus\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/fortworthreport.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Janna Franzwa Canard, Fort Worth Report July 11, 2026 Editor\u2019s note: Transcript provided by CoverGov and Cambridge…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":710003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,14614,7371,7372,7805,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-928735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-america","tag-documenters","tag-fort-worth","tag-fortworth","tag-keller-isd","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116903746430653565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n