Cape Coral charter school proposes $37.9 million 2026 budget; adds staff for high‑school enrollment growth

At a May 13, 2025 budget workshop at Cape Coral City Hall, Nicole Reitler, budget administrator for the City of Cape Coral, presented a proposed $37,919,009.40 operating budget for the city’s charter school system for fiscal year 2026. Reitler said the proposal is structurally balanced across all four schools and includes staff additions to accommodate 40 new high‑school students.

Reitler told board members, “My name is Nicole Reitler, and I am the budget administrator for the city.” She later summarized a central achievement of the cycle: “For the first time in a long time, all 4 schools are structurally balanced, from the elementary schools all the way up to the high school.”

Why it matters: the proposal represents a 7.81% increase over the 2025 adopted operating budget of $35,171,500 and relies in part on stepped increases in local capital funding (LCI) and public education capital outlay (PECO). The package also absorbs the city’s before‑and‑after care program into the charter school budget, adds buses and capital equipment, and builds modest pay increases and benefits adjustments into personnel costs.

Key figures and drivers

- Total proposed operating budget (2026): $37,919,009.40 (7.81% increase over 2025 adopted $35,171,500). - Enrollment…