The Berkeley County Schools board and staff spent much of a work session discussing how to close a gap between projected revenues and proposed spending, and flagged a likely willingness to draw reserves modestly to preserve an employee housing allowance.

Staff presented a preliminary revenue picture: a $5.6 million estimate in state aid, $3.4 million in levy revenue and roughly $2.66 million in new expenses tied to planned staffing and other changes, leaving about $747,005.53 available in the draft plan. Speaker 3, a staff presenter, said the district is "still about 3 weeks away from getting the state of the final state aid number."

Why it matters: board members said they prefer to preserve the housing allowance that employees received last year, and they discussed scenarios that would cover remaining priorities without dismantling the benefit. Board discussion repeatedly returned to the need to balance classroom investments against maintaining a prudent fund balance and to avoid creating an unsustainable long-term obligation.

Most important facts: staff told the board the district currently earns about 4.34% interest on investments and that roughly 100 additional students would equal about $600,000 in additional recurring cost. Several board members and staff sketched scenarios for savings, including reverting to charge-for-meals (CEP) or changing middle-school staffing patterns; one staff presenter said reverting the child nutrition plan could recover roughly $1 million (the transcript notes $995,026 collected from parents in the prior year).

Board direction: during discussion the board president (Speaker 1) and other members signaled they were "comfortable reducing our fund balance slightly to around 13%" as part of a strategy to preserve the housing allowance and accommodate high-priority items (Speaker 1). No formal budget vote occurred at the work session.

What remains open: staff and the board asked for follow‑up numbers and refinements before final adoption, including a more detailed breakdown of the leadership and school-level requests and the final state aid figures.

Ending: staff said they will return with refined scenarios at the next work session so the board can set final priorities before the budget is adopted.