The Tioga ISD school board voted to switch companies but stay with the same auditor for its Fiscal Year 2026 audit at its Monday evening meeting.
Because the contract with Heather LaPoint falls under the $50,000 cap, the school district had the option of waiving the request for proposals process to award the contract to LaPoint.
'We aren't going to find anyone that's more familiar with us,' Superintendent Josh Ballinger said. 'Her audits have been accepted by TEA.'
Ballinger added that he didn't want to put out a request for qualifications just to stick with the same person.
'There's a lot of people that go through those, spend a lot of time getting ready, thinking they have a legitimate shot to get your business, … when, in reality, we had our person that we wanted anyway,' he said.
He said he values that LaPoint has gotten 'the job done the first time,' after the district had issues identified by the Texas Education Agency audit department before working with her.
'I value continuity of care,' Vice President Trina Colteryahn said. 'She's super familiar with us, she works well with [TISD Business Manager] Sondra [Hall].'
President Dallas Slay built on that. 'She's been through everything that we've been through over the last few years, and she still wants to be here,' he said.
In the recent abatement letter from TEA Commissioner Mike Morath, the district was told it must maintain or improve its academic accountability ranking and it must have a passing score on its next Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas to maintain accreditation.
'We've lost our ability to appeal any kind of future decision,' Ballinger said. 'That it is ultimately up to the commissioner if we were to have any kind of issues pick up … in the future.'
Ballinger pointed to the work LaPoint has done for the district and its potential impact on the upcoming FIRST evaluation.
During her time with the firm Hankins, Eastup, Deaton, Tonn, Seay & Scarborough, LaPoint spearheaded the Tioga ISD audit efforts to re-evaluate the audits from 2021-23 in addition to preparing the 2024 and 2025 audits.
'Hankins took us on in a tough spot,' Ballinger said. 'We had some history there with them before. They even turned around and agreed to the '21, '22 redo, but I think that was because we had such a good working relationship with Heather, who was with them at the time.'
LaPoint's bid was $9,500 lower than Tioga ISD paid for the '25 audit.
'I have not advertised much that the reason the wording of the agenda item is like that is because Heather has now gone out on her own, and that's recent within the last week or two, and our relationship with her has been great,' Ballinger said.
He and Hall spoke about how easy it has been to work with LaPoint.
'She's always willing to help me and she tells me how to do it without messing up our system, which [would] mess up our FIRST ratings,' Hall said.
The board approved the contract for $30,000, pending approval from TEA and communication with Hankins about the change.
Also at the meeting, the board accepted the TEA District Vulnerability Assessment.
Ballinger shared an overview of some of the things it will address, such as including security personnel duties and violence policies in the district improvement plan.
One of the vulnerabilities the state inspector found has been corrected.
'I think it was a total accident that just happened, but he was up against the wall, and [the motion sensor at the second layer of doors in the middle school] was sensing him and making them go off when he was on the inside of the school, so he didn't like that at all,' Ballinger said.
The motion sensor function was cut off as a result, he added.
The district also plans to recruit more students to help make up the budget gap for the Tioga Early Childhood Development Center.
'The game plan is to move forward and make up about an eight to 10 kid gap, and through that, you're going to immediately generate, even at that older age, $55- to $60,000,' Ballinger said.
The district will give its typical $1,000 STEP raise for the upcoming school year for teachers, counselors and nurses, which was affirmed by a unanimous board vote.
Ballinger suggested basing the other staff salary raises on the midrange of the market instead of having a flat rate across the board.
TISD continues to monitor its average daily attendance of 571 versus the 645 the state payout is based on to avoid owing the state more money in repayments.
Also at the meeting, former Tioga ISD parent Mary Alexander spoke during open forum about her frustrations with the way the district handled her complaint about former TISD teacher Brad Strickland's conduct toward Alexander's daughter.
Alexander said her experiences have motivated her to speak out about grooming.
'I'm going to continue my mission to continue to protect our kids and families,' she said.
