Coweta County presents first FY27 budget workshop; 47 teaching positions reduced through attrition

Keith Chapman, assistant superintendent for finance, opened the board’s first FY27 budget workshop by walking members through Fund 100 revenue and expenditure projections and the assumptions behind them. He said the system’s current-year revenues are “just over $312,000,000” and presented a draft projection of total general-fund revenue near $320.7 million with projected expenditures of approximately $321.8 million, leaving reserves projected at about $42.9 million (roughly 13.3 percent of budget). Chapman cautioned the figures are projections because the district has not yet received formal state funding numbers.

Chapman said the district expects a projected $3.6 million increase in QBE (Quality Basic Education) funding and noted several state-driven costs, including increased employer contributions to the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) and funding for literacy coaches. He described an adjustment in the literacy coaches line: the coaches are now expected to be coded at a higher level (T5) than originally estimated, raising local cost-share obligations; the district plans to add 19 literacy coaches at a projected local cost of just over $2 million.

Superintendent Horton framed the larger staffing and structural context: enrollment has held “relatively flat,” and the district reduced 47 teaching positions through attrition rather than layoffs to align staffing with projected enrollment. “No one lost a job,” Horton said, adding that the reductions stem from school-by-school personnel adjustments and recent redistricting and campus configuration changes that are now stabilizing.

Board members questioned timing and certainty. One member noted the governor signed the state budget that day and asked whether more-concrete revenue numbers would follow; Chapman said the district expects clearer information within days and that tentative adoption will occur at the early June board meeting with formal adoption scheduled later in June. Horton and Chapman emphasized that state-mandated items—such as TRS increases and literacy coaches—carry local costs the district must absorb.

Chapman also highlighted several line items that affected the budget projection, including increases in transportation and bus replacement costs, a small decrease in certain state grants (a net decline of roughly $63,000), and federal/reimbursement items that vary year to year. He noted the district plans to transfer nearly $2 million more to the school food service program to avoid large lunch-price increases.

The presentation closed with the superintendent urging patience while the district incorporates official state allocations into the budget and inviting public review of detailed documents posted on the system’s financial information pages.