This wasn’t the latest the WFISD departments had gotten their budgets, but for the first month of school, Rider teachers went without money. The departments got the budgets on September 24, although, it is normally given out the first week of September.

     “Ideally, it would be nice to have it before school ever starts,” Career and Technology department head Chris Marvel-Loskot said. “Then we’re ready to get the things we need to do our jobs through the school year.”

     Rider Office Manager Montie Carroll said that Rider teachers were good about planning ahead and were concerned with the lateness of the budget, but it didn’t cause too many problems.

    “They always try to order things at the end of the year before so that they can start the school year,” Carroll said. “Mrs. McDonald and I work diligently through the summer. Always the main concern is will we have enough paper to print tests and worksheets.”

    Science department head Patrick Tempelmeyer said that they were planning on having some issues.

      “We had a few repair things we had to take care of, but it didn’t really seem to cause us any major issues at all,” Tempelmeyer said.

    Classes that couldn’t buy what they needed had to find alternative assignments for their students.

    “Before the budget arrived, all we did was bookwork,” sophomore Hanna McDorman said on the work in Nutrition and Wellness. “Now we actually do hands on things like watching Mrs. Nusser cook or cook something ourselves.”

    Nutrition and Wellness teacher Deliese Nusser said she was thrown two weeks behind schedule, but she made the delay work.

    “I had to change my lesson plan,” Nusser said. “I had to postpone buying things that I needed like my Servsafe, my food handlers, but I’m now almost caught up.”

    Carroll said they weren’t given an explanation for why it took so long for the Ed Center downtown to get the budget online.

WFISD Chief Financial Officer Cindy Tatum did not provide an answer for why the budget was late.