Carroll County board tentatively adopts FY 2025–26 budget for advertisement and public hearings
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Summary
Board voted unanimously to tentatively adopt the district’s FY 2025–26 budget, allowing advertising and public meetings; finance director outlined revenue and expenditure changes, SPLOST timing and state allotment impacts.
The Carroll County Board of Education tentatively adopted the FY 2025–26 budget during its May 12 work session, enabling the district to advertise the budget and schedule public hearings ahead of a June adoption vote.
Deline Wolf, the district’s finance director, presented the March financials and the budget update. She said general‑fund revenues year to date were about $14,100,000 and expenditures about $15,600,000, with a fund balance of $51,700,000 and $3,600,000 in outstanding purchase orders. For SPLOST, collections and expenditures in the period totaled about $1,300,000 with a balance of $5,100,000 for scheduled projects.
Wolf described the draft FY 2025–26 general fund as showing an $8,100,000 (4%) increase in revenues compared with the initial FY25 budget and a $7,200,000 (3.6%) increase in expenditures. She attributed most of the expenditure increase — roughly $5,000,000 — to state‑set employee benefit cost increases; other drivers include about $1,900,000 in operating cost increases and roughly $3,100,000 for new teachers and staff. The proposed budget also includes $3,100,000 in one‑time reductions to present a balanced package.
On SPLOST and bonds, Wolf said staff are finishing paperwork this month and will watch market conditions between now and December; she said the district anticipates issuing bonds sometime after the start of the next calendar year and that construction related to SPLOST projects would likely begin next spring.
Board action and next steps: A board member moved to tentatively adopt the FY 2025–26 budget as presented; another board member seconded the motion and the chair said all members voted in favor. The tentative adoption permits required public noticing, with a public hearing scheduled for Thursday and another at the June work session before final adoption in June.
Why it matters: The tentative adoption begins the formal public process and reflects assumptions about state allotments, local digest estimates and federal program funding; several line items and one‑time items remain adjustable prior to final adoption.
Questions and clarifications at the meeting included which nonrecurring items remained excluded from the next year’s baseline budget, how the district might reallocate fund equity if needed and that the increase in two school resource officers is shown as a reallocation in the budget detail.