Appoquinimink board approves final FY2026 budget amid warnings on tax receipts, special-education costs

The Appoquinimink School District Board of Education approved the district's final budget for fiscal year 2026 on Feb. 10, with administrators urging continued spending restraint to preserve projected carryover.

Chuck Longfellow, who presented the budget, said the district still projects enough carryover to cover one month of local payroll but described the district as operating "in austerity mode." He listed the top three risks to the projection as shortfalls in tax receipts, rising special-education costs and unanticipated expenses such as additional snow events. Longfellow said the district is watching tax receipts closely and has asked the county for up-to-date figures on the district's taxable assessed value before relying on supplemental receipts.

Superintendent Dr. Burrows asked the board to advocate at the state level to retain funding tied to the midyear unit count after saying the governor's recommended budget proposed removing midyear unit-count money. "I ask that you please advocate that for us, because that represents over a $100,000 for us as a district that would go away," Burrows said.

Finance director Ms. Stewart reviewed the December 2025 revenue and expenditure report and corrected a previously reported documentation error. She said a county tax receipt report was mistakenly used for the wrong month, resulting in about $162,000 being underreported for November 2025, but she said the mistake was a documentation issue and did not affect the district's overall revenue accounting once corrected. Ms. Stewart also noted the district recorded a state unit giveback of 25.33 units for December 2025, a reduction district staff estimated equates to about $2.2 million in state funding.

Board members pressed staff on the budget assumptions and internal controls, including double checks on coding and recoding of expenditures. Ms. Stewart said she has instituted additional internal-review steps and that recodes and larger transactions now get extra oversight before presentation to FAC and the board.

After discussion, the board moved to approve the final FY2026 budget. The motion carried.

Next steps: administrators said they will continue to present monthly revenue-and-expenditure updates, follow up with the county about tax-receipt timing and monitor special-education placements and costs to determine whether midyear amendments to the budget are needed.