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Austin ISD leaders share tense moment amid discussions on budget cuts

As Austin ISD faces slashing millions from its budget, tensions flared when school leaders gathered to discuss a decision with so much at stake.

AUSTIN — Slashing millions from a school budget is not easy.

Even tougher when you realize you're sending 51 percent of your property taxes to help other school districts. That is the situation facing the Austin Independent School District.

The tough talk got pretty heated Monday night when a budget task force presented ideas on how AISD can cut $30 million.

One idea -- getting rid of the district's current magnet programs at Fulmore Middle School, Kealing Middle School and LASA at LBJ High School, and replacing them with a magnet program at all campuses -- sparked a heated exchange between Task Force Chairman Robert Thomas and Trustee Cindy Anderson.

RELATED: Austin school district leaders listening to task force budget cut ideas

"As well as some of the comments regarding the students in those programs or the fact that the investment that we do make in them takes resources away from our English language learners or special ed students, that to me quite honestly was offensive," said Anderson.

That's when Thomas explained that the task force was only doing its job.

"We got some information that roughly 3,000 kids are in a specialty or magnet program, it may have slipped since then, versus the 82,000 students across the district. There was no attack, Trustee Anderson, there was raw, fundamental looking at data. But I think the discussion, if your concern is what the task force did, is misplaced. And, quite frankly, I find it a little offensive that you would say it was offensive that the task force would do that," said Thomas.

A tense moment because so much is at stake.

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