Budget workshop: Escambia schools face flat FEFP growth, rising scholarships and pressure to ‘right‑size’ facilities

Escambia County School District staff told the board at a June 30 budget workshop that the first Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) calculation for 2026 shows only a modest 1.37% increase in state funding and that traditional-school unweighted FTE is projected to decline by roughly 536 students while family empowerment scholarship FTE is rising.

The district’s presenter said the FEFP calculation is deceptive on totals because family empowerment scholarships remain in the FTE count but are adjusted out of FEFP revenue. Staff reported 40,993.95 total unweighted FTE in the current year (including scholarship students) and said current-year family empowerment scholarship enrollment was 5,047 unweighted FTE, with the new-year projection just under 6,000 unweighted FTE.

Officials warned the board that the teacher-salary allocation included in the FEFP will be about half the size of the prior year’s allocation: the FEFP-calculated teacher-salary pool for the district rose by roughly $1.2–$1.3 million in the first calculation for 2026, compared with larger increases in past years. The presenter said that, when allocated across the district’s roughly 2,600 teachers, the FEFP-calculated increase equates to under 1 percent of pay and amounts to an estimated “a little over $500 per teacher” from that state allocation; district managers reminded members that the general fund has historically absorbed additional local salary increases via the budget process.

Other cost pressures identified at the workshop included a retirement contribution rate increase (speaker cited a rise from about 13.63% to about 14.0%) that staff estimated would cost the district roughly $900,000, and continuing health‑insurance and employee-benefit pressures. The presenter said the district’s total operating levy assumptions use the statutorily allowable components—required local effort, discretionary millage and up to the full 1.5 mills allowable for capital—and noted the certified tax roll increased about 1.7% in the last year.

Board members asked for school-level cost reports showing revenue and cost by school; staff said those reports exist as part of the district cost reports and will be provided at future workshops once the year-end financials and the fourth FEFP calculation are finalized. Staff told the board that the second FEFP calculation (required-local-effort and other adjustments) will be available in July and that final budget decisions will be influenced by that update.

Much of the discussion focused on enrollment loss to family empowerment scholarships and private providers and on possible district responses intended to retain students. Board members and the superintendent discussed K–8 configurations as a retention strategy; staff said one K–8 (Longleaf) was already approved and will be phased in starting with a sixth-grade cohort, and that converting additional sites to K–8 or adding wings at existing schools could recapture students but would require capital investment and careful planning around transportation, course offerings (for example, accelerated math and eighth-grade algebra) and extracurricular programming.

Staff warned the board that, under the current revenue outlook, the district is not projected to break even in the coming year without internal reductions or other measures. The superintendent and board members discussed “rightsizing” departmental budgets and noted that the district has been holding positions vacant and delaying capital to reduce costs; the superintendent said staff would bring additional proposals and school-level analyses for further board consideration.

The workshop included no formal votes; the board took the workshop as informational and directed staff to return with additional detail (school-level cost reports, updated FEFP calculations and specific right‑sizing proposals).