Director of Schools Patrick Cripps met with the county budget committee Tuesday night to present the Board of Education’s proposed spending plan for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
The budget committee has not yet taken action on the school budget.
Director Cripps explained that the proposed new school budget includes $2,000 teacher bonuses from the state through the voucher program to those who qualify, and $2,000 bonuses funded locally to those educators who don’t qualify for the state bonuses. Support staff would each get a $1,000 bonus funded locally with passage of this budget.
“We don’t have any pay raises in this budget but our step increases are still in there for teachers. All we have in this budget is our bonuses and those will be funded by the state for certified staff. What’s coming from the state will be a little over $500,000 for the bonuses. About 30 people would not receive the state bonus but we did put that (local bonus) in there for them ($2,000 each). We feel like they are equally deserving of that bonus as the others that the state recognized which is certified people with licenses. The noncertified staff would not have received anything (bonus) so we put $1,000 in for each of them for this school year. All of that $245,000 (locally funded bonuses) is coming out of our budget reserves. This is a one-time bonus,” said Director Cripps.
Also included is $1.3 million from the school budget’s $13 million school reserves for the purchase of land for a future new school although no location either for a high school or middle school, has been publicly identified.
During the budget committee meeting Tuesday night, County Mayor Matt Adcock echoed a suggestion offered by the county’s fiscal agent Steve Bates last week on using local purpose or local option sales tax revenue to fund the purchase of property for a future new school without the money coming out of the school budget’s reserves.
“The school board and Director Cripps did not ask for us to take this $1.3 million out of the local purpose fund (to purchase land) but Steve (Bates) made this suggestion. The school board is trying to be proactive in looking for land to build the next school on. They are trying to put some money in their budget so they can have funding in place to buy it if an opportunity for a good piece of land comes along. Steve thought it wouldn’t make much sense for the school board to take $1.3 million from their budget for it when we have this local purpose tax fund from sales tax collections that we are funding new school construction out of. Steve said it would be better to take that $1.3 million from local purpose since that is what this fund is for anyway which is the construction of schools, land and things of that nature. If you choose to do this the unassigned fund balance as of June 30 in the educational capital projects (local purpose sales tax fund) would still be $16 million even after that $1.3 million comes out of it and it would not affect the payment on the new school we will be building. It has a pretty healthy fund balance. We have collected a lot of sales tax revenue over the past several years. I think this would be a better option,” said County Mayor Adcock.
As with most budgets, Director Cripps said the school budget has seen an increase in the annual cost of doing business especially with insurance.
“The killer for us is insurance (increased costs). That is where we took a hit. Last year we budgeted a 5% increase for insurance but that wasn’t enough. You will be seeing some budget amendments coming from us next month for your (county commission) approval so we can balance our budget in those line items for insurance. This year (new budget) we bumped that up again by another 5% but I don’t know if that is going to be enough. The state has still not told us what our insurance (budget) lines will be. That is the one area of our budget (insurance) that has really increased,” explained Director Cripps.
While nothing major is planned during the year as far as capital projects, other than the installation of classroom walls at DeKalb Middle School over the summer, Director Cripps said something could crop up that needs to be addressed.
“We don’t have any major projects or big-ticket items coming up or planned this year unless something pops up out of the blue. We just got verification that we will be going forward with construction of our walls at DeKalb Middle School and that $400,000 project will be funded in this budget we are currently in (2024-25). The only other big-ticket item is the $1.3 million for land,” said Director Cripps.
No new positions are to be created this year, according to Director Cripps, and some programs deemed not necessary or ineffective will be eliminated as the school district tightens its belt.
“We don’t have any new positions in this budget. Last year we added a couple of positions that we never filled. At this part of the year, we are cutting staff. It’s a hard thing to do but at this time you have to start tightening your belt. I understand you can’t have high pay and a thousand teachers. We are a small community, and you have to manage your money to fit community needs. We are absorbing some positions that have been in place because numbers are decreasing, and we don’t need those positions anymore. We are also absorbing positions as they retire or as they move to another county to work. We are not rehiring those positions unless it is an absolute need. One of those things you never know about is special education. A kid may move in with an individual education plan (IEP) who requires a certain type of teacher so we leave a buffer in there (budget) for that,” he said.
“Since 2020 (during the pandemic) we had received Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) federal money to provide instructional platforms for our teachers and students but now that money is gone so we will have to pick that back up locally. We have culled back on some programs funded by ESSER. I went to our principals and tech coordinator and told them I needed to see which programs were and were not being used. We are getting rid of those programs that were not being used with consistency showing proof that students were making gains on their tests and schoolwork. We have pared it down to those programs we feel have been effective for our teachers in benefitting students,” explained Director Cripps.
The school district continues to be pro-active in search of new programs to meet needs and save money. Through a partnership with DeKalb County, Graduation Alliance provides versatile pathways to high school graduation for youth and adults.
“We get estimates from the state on the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) dollars (the district receives) and last year it was almost $29 million. The estimate this year came in at $33 million but those numbers are fluctuating like mad right now. The April estimate was $200,000 less than the March estimate,” said Director Cripps. “We had a graduation coach in place who worked with our seniors, but she was also doing an adult school. We were not real comfortable with how that school was running because kids were not coming in and doing the work they were supposed to do. We weren’t graduating kids from it. We knew we needed to do something different. We partnered with a company called Graduation Alliance. It is a virtual adult high school. Under that contract they help us with the kids and our budget. With us losing students to home school this is another way for us to generate money in addition to what the state is sending us. Our virtual adult high school has generated almost $4.5 million which reflects on the (TISA) money we receive. But under this contract we only get 10% of that or $450,000. The rest flows back out to that company to teach those kids. All we have to do is keep the data on those students. We don’t have to hire a teacher for it or buy any computers and books. We’re just housing the data and putting them (students) on our Skyward Family Access account. They (Graduation Alliance) do all the work,” said Director Cripps.
The next meeting of the county budget committee will be Tuesday, May 27 at 6 p.m. in the downstairs courtroom of the courthouse.
