FLOWERY BRANCH – The Hall County Board of Education gave unanimous approval Monday evening to a preliminary draft of the Fiscal Year 2020 budget, which includes nearly $11.2-million of increased spending compared to the previous year.
“Keep in mind what that means,” School Superintendent Will Schofield reminded board members as to why the budget before them was termed “preliminary”. “We will continue to make changes to that budget as allowed by law right up until we approve a final budget at the end of June.”
“It does start the clock ticking, and does make the budget a public document that people can look at,” Schofield added.
Click here to view the preliminary budget.
District financial staff members spent over 30-minutes explaining the 26-page spread sheet to the board, detailing where every dollar of the $270,238,049 spending-plan was headed. The volume of information contained in the spread sheet was enormous.
The school board’s newest member, Mark Pettitt, facing his first budget preparation, asked Schofield and staff to summarize what the $11.2-million increase basically represented.
“That’s a great question,” Schofield responded.
“Nine-and-a-half million of that is due to increases in salaries and benefits,” Schofield began his explanation. “$700,000 of that…due to eight additional teaching positions, all in Special Education…and an additional million dollars in literacy costs this year.”
Schofield said the salary and benefit increases in the proposed 2020 budget will help the district replace departing teachers and other staff members.
(The board work session was held on the campus of Cherokee Bluff High School in conjunction with the district’s annual ceremony honoring retiring teachers and staff members.)
“We generally experience somewhere between a hundred and a hundred-and-fifty teachers that we have to hire every year,” Schofield explained. He said the pay package proposed in the FY2020 budget will help attract well-qualified personnel.
“The average teacher in Hall County next year will make a little over $55,000 a year,” he said. “And that’s pretty decent.”
While the preliminary budget might make teachers and other district employees smile, what effect will the proposed budget have on those providing the funds: the property owners of Hall County?
Schofield told board members that he had studied the latest tax digest for Hall County, and that he felt the rise in property valuations and the population growth within the county should easily absorb the increase requested in the FY 2020 school budget.
He told the board, “I do believe as we get closer (to finalizing the budget and setting the inherent millage rate) we’ll be in a position for you gentlemen to set a millage rate significantly lower than it was this year.”
Now that the preliminary budget has been approved, the requisite meetings and public hearings, and the advertisement of those hearings, will begin. Click here to view the schedule of upcoming events in the budget approval process.
