School Board approves budget for 2025-26

Staff Report

The Pulaski County School Board on Tuesday unanimously approved a budget for the 2025-26 school year to send to the Board of Supervisors.

The school board is required by state code to provide the supervisors by April 1 with an estimate of what the school system will need to operate in the next fiscal year.

The budget approved Tuesday shows a surplus of $45,126 – with revenues of $66,360,145 and expenditures of $66,315,019.

As of now, the budget lists state funding at $38.4 million and county funding at $17.1 million.

The budget includes:

– 3 percent raises for all school employees

– A $1.1 million increase in insurance costs due to an overall average increase in premiums for employees of 39 percent.

– All three of the school board’s additional “wants,” including $100,000 for a Chronic Absenteeism Specialist, $335,000 for kindergarten aides and $160,000 for additional art and music teachers.

Massie District representative Josh Taylor noted that both the kindergarten aides and additional art and music teachers were on the “want lists” of all teachers the board had heard from.

He noted the budget funds the additional wants “with no additional tax cost to citizens.”

In formulating the budget, the school board had as a major goal that no school employee would make less next school year than they had this year.

In the face of such a large increase in health insurance premiums, School Superintendent Rob Graham said he will propose bonuses for all employees of at least $750 for full-time employees and $250 for part-timers.

“With that bonus everybody should be taking home more money next year than they had this year,” Graham said.

Finance Director Morgan Sklar noted that – despite the increase in premiums for next year – Pulaski County still ranks in the middle of the pack of school divisions she looked at in terms of insurance rates, if not below.

“We think that’s why we don’t have many vacancies, but have 28 or 29 applicants right now,” Graham said.

Taylor added that as of now, the school system is expecting to have four retirees this year and only seven open positions.

“That’s crazy! We used to have about 60 a year,” he added.

Prior to voting on the proposed budget, the board held a public hearing on the spending plan. No citizen, however, spoke during the hearing for or against the proposal.