SAN ANTONIO — This is a budget cut that could affect thousands of students in San Antonio, regardless of which school district they attend. More than $600 million has been cut from the school health and related services program.

Funding is widely used to help students with medical disabilities. We reached out to several San Antonio school districts, but only received a response from the Northside Independent School District, the city’s largest school district.

“The SHARS program is only for students who need medical service while in our schools,” said Tiffany Contreras, assistant superintendent of budget and finance at Northside ISD.

Contreras said the program reimburses school districts for medical and transportation costs.

“In previous years it was about $20 million for Northside ISD, and last year it was $14 million, so that was, you know, a reduction of over $6 million for us.” , Contreras said.

So why is this money being reduced? We contacted Texas Health and Human Services to ask. The ministry told us the move followed an audit and report released in 2017 and suggested funding for the program be halted.

In the end, the program was not completely eliminated, but significantly reduced.

The department goes on to say that it has “worked diligently with our federal oversight partners to maintain SHARS funding and reverse the decision to deny funding.” “It was a federal decision not to continue SHARS funding, not a state decision.”

The loss of money hasn’t changed the programs or resources available to Northside ISD students, but Contreras said it has forced the district to look for ways to make ends meet.

“Right now, we haven’t made any drastic changes, but there are ongoing conversations with our board, of course, to talk about the deficit that we have,” Contreras said.