Hunt County ISDs get 'superior' ratings from TEA for financial integrity

Travis Hairgrove, The Herald Banner, Greenville, Texas
·1 min read

Dec. 1—The Greenville Independent School District, as well as multiple other public school districts in Hunt County, recently received "superior" ratings from the Texas Education Agency's Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas (FIRST).

"FIRST ensures that Texas public schools are held accountable for the quality of their financial management practices and that they improve these practices," GISD Deputy Supt. of Administration Wes Underwood explained. "GISD did score a 98, which is a superior rating, so that is excellent news."

The report released by FIRST this year was based on financial data from the 2020-21 school year, and districts were graded on 17 indicators. Greenville ISD received 98 points out of the possible 100.

The indicators addressed a range of financial matters, including such things as the timeliness of submissions of financial data to TEA and payments to the Teachers Retirement System, as well as short- and longer-term ratios of assets to liabilities.

The only indicator in which GISD did not receive a perfect score concerned the district's ratio of liabilities to assets for the last five years. The threshold set for a perfect score on that indicator was for the ratio to increase by at least .7%, and GISD's ratio showed an increase of .653%

The complete list of indicators and the criteria used in grading them can be found on the TEA website at https://bit.ly/3VnlY0j.

Greenville ISD was not alone in achieving a superior FIRST rating. In Hunt County, district ratings were as follows:

—Lone Oak, Campbell, Celeste and Wolfe City all made perfect scores of 100;

—Quinlan and Royse City both received a 98;

—Bland scored a 96;

—Commerce made a 94;

—Caddo Mills received a 92, and;

—Boles ISD achieved a 90.