Putnam County School Board approves advertisement of tentative balanced budget, proposes 6.865 mills; first budget hearing set for July 30

The Putnam County School Board on July 24 voted to advertise a tentative balanced budget for the 2025–26 school year and a proposed millage rate of 6.865 mills and set the first public hearing on the budget for Wednesday, July 30 at 5:05 p.m.

"The purpose of today's meeting is to approve the 20 25, 20 26 proposed tentative balanced budget and proposed millage for advertising and to set the date, time, and place of the first public hearing on our budget," Superintendent Dr. Serenti said at the start of the presentation. Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Odom presented the documents the board approved for publication: a Notice of Budget Hearing, a Notice of Tax for School Capital Outlay, and a budget summary ad.

Why it matters: the advertised millage determines whether the district must publish a Notice of Proposed Tax Increase or a Notice of Budget Hearing under TRIM (Truth in Millage) rules. Odom said the district's "rollback millage rate is 5.3291," which is a statutory calculation that ignores voter-approved debt; the district's proposed actual millage for 2025–26 is 6.865, up from 6.13 last year. Odom attributed the increase primarily to a mix of a reduction in required local effort, prior-period state adjustments and an increase in debt-service millage tied to a second issuance of voter-approved bonds.

Odom summarized the budget totals included in the ad: the district's current operating (general) fund is listed as $126,063,857.65 and the entire budget as $477,658,546.36, a jump from roughly $444.2 million last year largely driven by the second issuance of voter-authorized bond funding. Odom said the district's June 30 actual fund balance is $17,555,044.69 and that, after incorporating budgeted revenues and reserves, he estimates a June 30, 2026 fund balance of about $12,568,718.87.

The advertisement for capital outlay proposes continuing the 1.5 mills for capital needs; Odom said that 1.5 mills is projected to generate about $12,274,642 for the year (compared with $12,355,615 last year). He noted the ad must list allowable spending categories for capital outlay because money cannot later be used for categories not included in the published ad without republishing and holding another public hearing.

Board discussion touched on how a recent property-appraiser issue involving a large taxpayer affected the district's revenue picture. Clay Davis, the Putnam County property appraiser, told the board the matter will end this year and described the situation as a reporting error by the taxpayer that was corrected. "Essentially what they did was they booked TPP equipment and items in Putnam County that should have been booked in other counties," Davis said. "By the time that mistake was realized, the budgets had already been essentially certified." He said the company agreed to step down the decrease rather than pursue a certificate of correction that would have sharply reduced the county tax roll and damaged budgets for local taxing jurisdictions.

The motion to allow staff to submit the three budget advertisement pages to the Palaca Daily News for publication on Saturday, July 26, and to hold the first public hearing on July 30 at 5:05 p.m. passed on a roll call vote. The board also recognized and allowed Board Member Linda Wagner to participate and vote via Zoom before the action was taken.

The board will review line-by-line budget detail at future meetings, and Odom said staff will provide the category-level reports emailed to members so trustees can examine specific expenditures and reserves before the final budget adoption.

Ending: The advertised materials and the scheduled July 30 public hearing begin the formal TRIM timeline; the school board may revise numbers before final adoption at later hearings.