- December 4, 2025
The Volusia County School Board approved a tentative budget and millage rate on Tuesday, July 29. Its budget of $1,175,237,213 for the 2025-26 fiscal year is a decrease of nearly $361 million from last year.
The district's total millage rate of 5.279 is 2.99% higher than the roll-back rate which is the rate that would generate the same amount of revenue as last year as applied to current taxable property value. The total millage rate and the state-mandated Required Local Effort millage rate of 3.027 are 0.006 mills lower than last year.
“Our portion went down,” board member Ruben Colon said. “Nobody will tell you that. It doesn’t sell newspapers.”
The RLE tax is projected to raise $211,346,359. The district’s capital improvement tax of 1.5 mills is projected to raise $104,592,392.
The reduced budget of $1.175 billion is mainly due to a reduction of students due to the voucher program. The district enrollment has decreased each year since 2022-23. The district expects over 1,400 fewer students this year than last.
Chief Financial Officer Todd Seis said the budget’s emphasis is on staffing, student learning conditions, operational efficiency and stakeholder engagement.
Eighty-one percent of the budget goes to salaries.
The budget breaks down to $635,350,398 in the general fund, $49,427,506 in the debt service fund, $361,949,672 in the capital projects fund, $208,747,010 in the special revenue fund which includes federal programs and $19,762,627 in the internal service fund which includes self insurance and workers’ compensation.
Superintendent Carmen Balgobin said there is still a lot of uncertainty with final recalculations from last year not yet released.
The board unanimously approved the budget and millage rate. The final adoption of both is set for Sept. 9.
