Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles speaks to the district’s board of managers during a budget workshop meeting on April 23, 2026.

Houston ISD's board of managers delayed a vote Thursday night to approve the district's proposed budget for the 2026-27 school year.

The state-appointed managers are now scheduled to vote on June 25. The board must approve a budget by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

The board has already held two workshops over the last six weeks to discuss the details of the $2 billion proposed budget. Superintendent Mike Miles, also appointed in 2023 as part of a state takeover of Texas' largest school district, was aiming to balance the budget for the first time since he joined HISD. However, Thursday’s projections show expenditures exceeding revenue by nearly $25 million.

Sign up for the Hello, Houston! daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.

The district is preparing for the loss of nearly $50 million in state funding due to declining enrollment and another $18-$19 million in federal funding, which is decreasing nationwide for public schools, according to HISD.

To offset those losses, the district expects to save $15 million from the closure of 12 schools this year and another $35 million from job cuts in the central office. The board recently greenlit a reduction in force.

The bulk of the district's revenue is taxpayer money. The board discussed the difficulties of budgeting without a bond amid serious concerns over aging infrastructure in campuses all across the district.

"We continue to have to make tough decisions," board member Janette Garza Lindner said. "On the other side, we hear people who complain about the [air conditioning] or the conditions of the schools and things like that. Those issues will continue to grow."

In 2024, voters rejected a $4.4 billion bond package, which district leaders said at the time would have funded dozens of campus rebuilds as well as widespread school renovations, including the replacement of faulty air-conditioning and heating units.

"When we went out for bond, we showed that we had $10 billion worth of need – at least $1.03 billion of security and safety needs — and so that need doesn’t go away and it just increases in intensity over time," Miles said. "We will continue to have to spend money – more money than usual – on our buildings and facilities and that will eat into all the money that we have. So we will either have to cut somewhere else or find new revenue."

Earlier this year, the board approved a series of “1882” partnerships with nonprofit organizations to manage top-performing high schools and prekindergarten centers. Those will bring additional state funding into the district.

However, because the budgets for those campuses will be under the control of approved outside managers, HISD will gain only $1.2 million from the partnerships' additional funding as administrative fees for services the district will continue to provide the campuses.

Amid the funding losses and measures to scale back costs, HISD is investing millions to pilot a new program called "Future 2."

Houston ISD state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles presents the budget proposal to the board of managers at the second budget workshop on May 20, 2026.

$4.5 million allocated for Future 2 schools

Part of the draft budget proposal includes pouring $4.5 million into piloting the new Future 2 program. Next year HISD will transform nine campuses into "Future 2" schools, where the afternoon will be spent building skills preparing students for a world driven by artificial intelligence (AI), but few details have been shared about the exact lesson plans.

The budget draft allotts approximately half a million per school. In an interview with Houston Public Media's Craig Cohen on Houston Matters, Miles shared more details about how he wants the schools to use the money.

"We think there’s going to be some equipment costs. We think there’s some things we’re going to learn,” Miles said. "A lot of [the cost is] going to be in field trips. If we have to cut back on the number of field trips we will. Right now we are planning on field trips every three weeks, so the transportation cost is huge on that."

Miles also shared details on how students at Future 2 schools may spend their afternoons.

"I'll just read a few of the experiences and activities: Playing chess, rock climbing, dining at a restaurant, visit a museum, visit a college campus, travel abroad, write a pen pal, volunteer ropes course, escape room, go camping, grocery shopping," Miles said.

Miles said some of the $500,000 cushion is to allow the district to learn what works and doesn't. He said he hopes to get the costs down to $250,000 or $300,000 per school and said the schools will not have an autonomous budget, but rather the district would dictate how the money is spent. The Houston Chronicle reported the superintendent has plans to expand the Future 2 school program to as many as 100 schools.

Miles said the goal of the program is to get students ready for an AI-enabled word.

"What does that mean? That means we are teaching not just critical thinking, information literacy, and problem solving,"Miles said. "Now we’re also adding emotional intelligence, learning how to learn, working in teams, adaptive learning, those sorts of things. There are 10 competencies we think kids need to be ready for a different world and workplace."