BISD Earns State’s Highest Fiscal Accountability Rating

Brownsville Independent School District officials announced that the district received a rating of “P” for “Passed” under the Texas School FIRST financial accountability rating system. The “Passed” rating is the state’s highest, demonstrating the quality of Brownsville ISD’s financial management and reporting system. This is the district’s 12th top rating in the School FIRST (Financial Accountability Rating System of Texas), a financial accountability system for Texas school districts developed by the Texas Education Agency in response to Senate Bill 875 of the 76th Texas Legislature in 1999. Major changes to the School FIRST system were implemented by the Texas Education Agency in August 2015 that combined financial indicators with financial solvency indicators, in accordance with House Bill 5, 83rd Texas Legislature, Regular Session, 2013. The primary goal of School FIRST is to achieve quality performance in the management of school districts’ financial resources, a goal made more significant due to the complexity of accounting associated with the Texas school finance system. The Texas Education Agency converted School FIRST to a two-tier rating system of either “P” for “Pass” or “F” for Substandard Achievement” for the 2014-2015 rating year.