Pickens County school board approves $187.24 million general fund budget with pay increases

The Pickens County School District board on May 27 approved the third reading of the fiscal year 2025–26 General Fund budget, a balanced plan of $187,236,124 that the administration said does not include a tax increase or the use of fund balance.

Miss Sarah Reinhart, finance staff, told trustees the third reading is “balanced in the amount of $187,236,124 and does not include a tax increase or the use of fund balance.” She said the figure represents a 4.6% increase over the district’s amended FY25 general fund budget and that the mill rate shown will be adjusted after reassessment data is received this summer.

The budget document presented to the board breaks revenue and expenditures into broad categories. Reinhart said about 66.56% of the revenue (roughly $124.6 million) is expected from the state and about 32.9% (approximately $61.6 million) from local sources, primarily tax levies; other revenue is a little over 0.5% (about $1 million). On the expenditure side, salaries account for roughly 59.76% (about $111.9 million) and employer-paid benefits 29.91% (about $56 million); together salaries and benefits are about 89.7% of the budget. Other categories shown included utilities, purchased services and supplies and equipment.

The third reading includes targeted compensation changes the administration said are intended to keep the district competitive with neighboring systems. The package provides a $1,500 increase on each step of the certified salary schedule (raising starting teacher pay to $50,600 for a bachelor’s degree), a year-of-experience increase where eligible, a 3% increase to the bus driver scale, a 3% increase to the classified scale (up from 2% in second reading), a custodial rebanding that raises custodial starting pay to $15 per hour, and a 3% cost-of-living adjustment for principals, assistant principals and district leadership (up from 2%). Reinhart said average increases vary by group (the average teacher increase with the step and years change was presented as 3.3%).

Board members asked about two items called out in the presentation. One was the exclusion of PowerSchool predictive analytics from the budget; administration said the district determined it could perform needed enrollment and predictive work in-house without paying for the extra PowerSchool package. The other was a state funding change (an anticipated increase the administration estimated at about $200,000) that had not been finalized and therefore was not included in the third reading; any additional revenue would be added in a later budget amendment.

Miss Sarah Reinhart said the budget as approved is based on 110 mills and includes the nonappropriation of funds for PowerSchool Analytics. Trustees approved the third reading on a voice/raised-hand vote with no opposition recorded in the meeting record.

The district posted the budget book to its website, which the administration said includes graphs and additional detail on compensation, benefits and other expenditure categories. The board and administration indicated reassessment-related mill adjustments and any final state revenue changes would be handled before the tax rate is finalized.

The approval concludes the formal third-reading process for the general fund; administration said it will monitor enacted state actions and bring any necessary amendments back to the board.