The Liberty County School System will dip into its fund balance to make its fiscal year 2027 budget work.
Board members, in a 3-1 vote, approved the tentative budget for the coming fiscal year, which starts July 1. The budget calls for $160.7 million in expenditures and $156.2 million in revenues. That gap of nearly $4.45 million will made up through the school system’s fund balance.
The state’s portion of revenue, through the Quality Basic Education formula, was down nearly $4 million from the current fiscal year to $93.2 million. The spending plan includes continuation of the student worker, employee referral and signing bonuses for identified areas, but it does not include raises nor does it include step increases to salary scales.
Board member Marcus Scott IV, who voted against the tentative budget, lobbied for raises for teachers.
“We have enough to give staff a raise,” he said. “We’re not cutting anything.”
Chief financial officer Stephanie Clark said cuts were made from the original proposals from departments. Those cuts totaled $3.4 million as Superintendent Debra Frazier sat down with each department and figured out where she could cut from non-instructional items.
Raises and step increases, combined with the cut in state funding, would have put the school system with a $10-$11 million deficit, Clark said. Doing that would have meant going into the fund balance by at least $7 million.
The school system’s reserve covers monthly expenses of between $12 million and $15 million when revenues are at the lowest, such as summer and fall. Most property tax bills are paid during the winter, and very little proceeds from property taxes come in during summer and fall. The school system’s current operating reserve is around $46.7 million, which covers a little more than three months of expenses.
Chair Verdell Jones and other board members said they would like to put in raises and step increases this year — but they also worried about the revenue to back those raises and step increases in future years.
“We did look at raises,” Frazier said, “but when you give a raise, you have to be able to sustain that in years to come.”
Jones also said she did not want to add to the tax burden of local property owners.
“We would want to give raises and incentives but not at any additional cost to taxpayers,” she said. “That’s part of that process. We have been diligent not to raise the millage. We are overtaxed in this community, especially the homeowners.”
Board member Carol Guyett also questioned how much more taxpayers, particularly older ones, can bear.
“I agree — they can’t afford any more,” she said. “Everybody is struggling. It breaks my heart to see some of our elderly and they are worried they are going to lose it because they can’t afford the taxes.”
Guyett also recalled the school system’s bleak financial straits of several years ago, when many paraprofessionals were laid off.
“I sat on this board and it haunts me to this day when we had exactly $90,000 left in our bank account and we sent home parapros, people who worked in minimum wage jobs, and they got pink slips,” she said. “We could not pay them. That’s reality.
“We’re going to have be fiscally responsible,” she added, noting Chatham County Schools are facing a $6 million deficit. “We have to do what is right for our taxpayers and provide what we can for our students.”
The bulk of the school system’s funding, more than 62%, comes from the state. Just under 24% comes from local sources, such as property taxes, and federal funding accounts for 13.8%. Local sources are expected to account for $37.1 million in revenue, up from $32.6 million for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.
But the state’s portion of the school system budget is getting slashed from a total of $100.8 million to $97.1 million. The FY26 budget had $154.5 million in revenue and $157.5 million in spending, with that difference being made up from the unreserved fund balance.
The FY27 budget calls for a 2% increase, just under $3.2 million, in spending over the FY26 budget. The increase in revenue is nearly $1.8 million, or 1%.
The school board levied a millage rate of 16.385 in 2020 but has trimmed that to 14.114.
The majority of the school system’s expenditures, $89.4 million, are directed toward instruction. Another $13.4 million is allotted to pupil services. Maintenance and operations account for more than $11.8 million in spending while $9.6 million is spent on school administration and $9.1 million goes to transportation.
Total salaries and benefits — the school system also will be paying a larger share of employee health insurance in the coming year — account for 82% of the budget.
Proceeds from the education special purpose local option sales tax will be spent on several building and safety improvements across the district. By state law, ESPLOST revenues can be spent on capital items, such as new school buses, but cannot be used to pay for teachers’ salaries.
The biggest ticket item ESPLOST will fund in the next year is a HVAC system upgrade at Bradwell Institute, pegged at $3.5 million. A second phase of interior renovations at Bradwell is estimated to cost $2.2 million.
A roofing upgrade at Liberty Elementary School will take up $1.5 million in ESPLOST proceeds, and textbook adoptions will cost $1.5 million. The roof at Liberty County High School’s weightroom will be replaced, at $250,000, and another $350,000 will go toward generators and life safety enhancements at all schools.
Additions and replacements to the school system’s bus and white fleet are expected to be $825,000 and another $100,000 will be spent on new band equipment for the middle and high schools.
The school system also will set aside $2.75 million from ESPLOST to spend on a potential new school, including land acquisition, preliminary design, due diligence and reserve.
Board members also are anticipating further funding cuts from the federal government and are waiting to see what happens with the movement to either curtail or eliminate homestead property taxes across the state.
“A new school can make that $40 million disappear overnight,” Guyett said of the reserve. “We still don’t know what the federal government is going to cut. The indications are to get ready.”
“It is time for us to be frugal now, more than ever,” Jones said. “We want to make sure our monies are drilling down to the classrooms.”
Board members are set to vote on a final adoption of the budget June 23 at 9 a.m. in order to get a budget in place by the start of the fiscal year July 1.