Houston Independent School District’s maintenance bill spiked hard in the 2025 fiscal year, with campuses racking up about $44 million in repairs and urgent fixes across the district. Aging HVAC systems, failed chillers, and leaky roofs triggered one-off emergency jobs at dozens of schools. All of it hit while the district was already under budget pressure after voters rejected a $4.4 billion HISD bond in November 2024, leaving administrators scrambling to piece together other funding for critical infrastructure.
District documents reviewed by the Houston Chronicle show HISD spent about $44 million on campus maintenance and repairs during fiscal 2025, which ran from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025. That is roughly a 50% jump from the district’s typical $28 million annual maintenance bill. The Chronicle’s analysis found campus-level maintenance rose about 60% year over year, and the median maintenance cost landed at roughly $113,000 per campus.
Tax note and urgent repairs
After the bond failed, HISD turned to a maintenance tax note to tackle immediate needs instead of waiting for another referendum. As reported by Community Impact, the district set aside about $40 million for urgent roofing and HVAC upgrades in 2025-26, including roughly $21.2 million for HVAC work and $22.7 million for roof projects across about 36 campuses. Board materials cited by Community Impact show the work ranges from chiller and unit ventilator replacements to partial or full roof replacements at schools that rose to the top of the priority list.
Campuses that cost the most
The biggest checks were cut for a small group of campuses. Records show North Forest High led the pack with more than $1.2 million in campus maintenance spending, and Marshall Middle logged more than $870,000 in repairs for fiscal 2025, according to the Houston Chronicle. The Chronicle also found HISD spent about $1.8 million maintaining 11 schools that are now slated for closure, a costly reminder that even buildings on the chopping block can drain resources when upkeep has been deferred.
Why this matters
The spending spike matters because it pushes limited operating dollars into unplanned fixes and shines a spotlight on long-running facility problems across the system. After the failed bond vote in November 2024, HISD board leaders floated selling nearly 20 district properties as one way to balance competing needs, according to reporting by Houston Public Media, underscoring the tough trade-offs ahead for taxpayers and school leaders.
What's next
HISD officials describe the maintenance tax note and targeted projects as stopgap measures while the district works on longer-term solutions and weighs whether to return to voters with another bond proposal. Community Impact reported that Superintendent Mike Miles has framed the $40 million program as a way to reduce classroom disruptions and improve air quality, even as the district acknowledges the effort reaches only a fraction of the roughly $12.3 billion in broader facilities needs identified in district estimates.
