GAINESVILLE – The vote was not unanimous, but after being 27-days past the start of the new fiscal year, the Hall County Board of Education finally adopted its FY2021 budget and set the millage rate to support it.
On Monday the district held the final two public comment periods required for budget adoption. Only one person spoke at the 11:00 a.m. session and no one spoke during the designated public comment period at the 6:00 p.m. session.
“We will be dipping into our savings account,” School Superintendent Will Schofield said of the budget. “On paper it shows about $15-million; I anticipate that will be closer to $10 (million) by the time that we cut expenses at every opportunity that we can.”
Schofield describes operating and funding a school district during the COVID-19 pandemic as unprecedented. “Considering the times, it’s fortunate that we have a rainy day fund,” Schofield said moments before the measure was approved.
While the millage rate remains the same as last year at 17.55-mils, because property evaluations have increased the amount of tax revenue expected increases and that requires three public hearings before the school board votes on the measure.
The lone dissenting votes against the budget and the applicable millage rate were cast by Post 2 representative Mark Pettitt.
“I’m approaching this from a different angle,” Pettitt told his fellow board members. “I’m not going to be cavalier or overly critical, but I would like to say that I would like to see some property tax relief for the folks in our community who are also struggling.”
“I think that we can achieve that in future budgets by implementing policies and procedures such as ‘zero-based budgeting’, and things like that,” Pettitt explained.
After the meeting Pettitt called the new budget, “…the cherry on top of a very challenging season for public schools and our district in particular.”
He continued, “I think if we roll up our sleeves and come together…if we evaluate what our needs are and have a pretty deep assessment of that each year we can provide some relief this time next year.”
CLASS START-UP PUSHED BACK AN ADDITIONAL WEEK
School Superintendent Will Schofield recited the latest Coronavirus statistics released by Hall County, looked at the school board members and said, “I’m asking you gentlemen to extend pre-planning for an additional week, which would be August 3rd through August 21st, giving our team members time to make sure we are absolutely ready to keep everybody as safe as possible and to put forward a program for our boys and girls that we can be proud of.”
“What that would mean is the first day of school would be August 24th,” Schofield explained.
“We haven’t changed anything about what school looks like,” he interjected. “All we know is that we need some more time to plan.”
Schofield’s recommendation was approved unanimously by the board.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2020/7/923728/hall-county-schools-set-millage-rate-reset-instructional-start-date