- April 24, 2024
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Flagler County schools began planning for the worst on Tuesday: The district is facing a $1.4 million gap in next year’s budget if voters do not pass a proposed property tax in a special election next month.
The tax, if passed, would continue a 0.25 millage levy set to expire June 30 and add an additional 0.25 mills to the tax. The tax in place currently generates about $1.6 million annually for the schools. The increase would push revenue from the tax to about $3.2 million.
So far, most of the discussion about the tax has centered on what the Flagler County School Board would do with the additional funding the millage levy would generate. But at a workshop Tuesday, the board talked instead about what it will do if the tax does not pass and if it loses the $1.6 million from the district’s current tax revenues.
Tom Tant, chief financial officer for the district, said the $1.4 million budgetary gap doesn’t include any enhancements to the school resource officer program or the addition of 45 minutes per day for middle- and high-school students, which the board hopes to fund using the property tax if it passes.
Tant said the district already plans to eliminate 15 teaching positions next year, for a total savings of $785,000 next year. Two administrative reductions will also save the district $140,000. Superintendent Janet Valentine said the district already planned to reduce about $400,000 from its budget, even if the tax passes, to help fund the increased classroom time and safety measures in schools.
However, costs are increasing, Tant said. Pay raises for teachers who are rated as “effective” or “highly effective” were approved by the state Legislature, totaling $2.1 million in Flagler. The raises will be paid by the state only once. School Board member Colleen Conklin said she didn’t want to seem ungrateful for the raise, but worried about the district’s responsibility to sustain the raises.
The School Board hunted for potential cuts Tuesday, using a list of district programs as a springboard for discussion. The same list was used last year, and Valentine said that every time the district tries to cut, there are fewer reasonable cuts to make. Many of the higher-cost programs are grant-funded or state-mandated and cannot be touched.
“There’s nothing major that you’re going to see because there’s nothing major left to cut,” Valentine said.
Instead, the board examined a list of potentially discretionary programs — often cringing at the thought of cutting them. Tant will bring more information about those programs to a workshop next week.
School Board member Trevor Tucker offered the most ideas. His goal, he said, was to cut programs that least impacted students first before resorting to cutting programs like art and music. One of his suggestions was that high schools host their graduations at their own schools rather than renting a property.
“If (graduation) is at the high schools, kids still graduate; they still get their diplomas; parents still get to see them,” Tucker said. “But it doesn’t hurt their education.”
Tucker also suggested only funding travel for teams and groups in state-level competitions rather than national-level competitions, criticizing not only the cost of travel and accommodations for staff on the trip, but also for the cost of substitute teachers back at the schools.
Conklin suggested a closer look at $8,000 to $15,000 annually, per school, on library books.
“This seems like a traditional mindset in that we’re spending a lot of money on books — replacement books — when the kids are going to be getting iPads that can hold books at minimum cost,” she said.
The board will have another workshop to discuss potential cuts at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
