BY KARISSA MILLER
The Iredell-Statesville Schools Board of Education approved a $62.1 million local current expense budget request for fiscal year 2024-2025 earlier this week.
The budget request represents a 14.25 percent increase over the previous budget of $54 million.
School budgets are made up of local, state, federal and other funding sources. The budget request will be considered by the Iredell County Board of Commissioners, which allocates funding for I-SS, the Mooresville Graded School District and Mitchell Community College.
I-SS Chief Finance Officer Adam Steele outlined some of the revenue challenges facing the district, including the loss of $10.3 million in federal ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds, reduction in Title I funds and Exceptional Children funding.
I-SS is planning to fund 21.5 teaching positions and 21 school nurses — that were paid out of ESSER funds – out of the local budget. The cost to retain those positions next year is around $3.1 million.
“We put people on ESSER dollars because if you are a good CFO and understand budgeting, you put your highest paid employees on your federal or state budgets,” Superintendent Jeff James said.
“That way your local budget pays for your less costly employees and you end up having more dollars available to spend on other items,” he added.
James said that the state does not give school districts adequate funding to pay for the special services required to serve the special needs children population.
The needs are great, he said, and the lack of funding puts I-SS in a bind.
Another challenge, Steele explained, is the many unknowns with the state budget. This will impact the local budget, he added.
Steele told the board that the state’s two-year biennium budget calls for:
• A 3-percent salary increase,
• A reduction in the retirement rate from 25.02-percent to 24.04-percent and
• An increase in health insurance from $7,557 to $8,095.
“We built in a 4 percent raise in the local proposed budget based on our last two years of salary increases. We anticipate starting to hear some budget numbers in late April or early May,” he said.
He also briefly spoke about enrollment figures or Average Daily Membership (ADM), which helps determine local funding.
“We currently do not know our projected ADM, so we used our current ADM to build the budget,” Steele explained.
The district’s current enrollment is about 20,530 students.
Steele said that the funding request is due to the commissioners this week. He said that he hopes they will fund the full amount since it is “based on the needs.”
He told the I-SS Board that the district’s executive team has already started contemplating “what if” discussions regarding potential local budget shortfalls.
“We hope to protect jobs as much as possible. There is going to be some tough decisions that have to be made. We are discussing that as a group and talking about that now and have been talking about that,” Steele said.
“We hope to be able to take it through attrition as people retire or jobs become vacant so we don’t have to cut jobs,” he added.
The local budget consists of:
• 52 percent salaries and benefits,
• 7 percent utilities,
• 12 percent is charter schools. (This is a mandatory cost that local districts pay out of their budget to the state. State and local tax dollars are the primary funding source for charter schools.)
• 3.2 percent is allotted to schools for supplies and materials.
“These are needs are very real. If we don’t get funding — we are going to lose something. We are going to lose services that we have offered to our kids the last year,” said Board Vice Chairman Charles Kelly.
Major Budget Additions
• $1,356,125 for 21.5 teacher positions moved back from ESSERs
• $1,834,300 for 21 nurse positions moved from ESSERs
• $325,187 for Instructional Support positions
• $306,000 for contracted substitutes
• $167,634 increase in noncertified teachers being paid certified pay
• $144,368 for two ESL teachers (for added growing population)
• $165,000 in Yellow Bus Transportation costs
• $89,000 for advertising
• $87,000 for security costs
• $181,711 for utilities
• $760,138 in charter school costs
• $133,305 in contracted custodian and maintenance
• $443,000 in raises and benefit costs
• Total additions: $5,992,768
Reductions
Proposed budget cuts include eliminating the teacher attendance supplement and planning period stipend for a total of $942,188.
Still wasting time and money on not breaking ground for the Weathers Creek High School. Fire all of them and put better people in.
ESSER funds were temporary dollars from federal government primarily associated with COVID and “The American Rescue Plan.” The $10.1 million the district received was temporary and, now we are learning much COVID was inaccurate. This appears to have been a waste.
Thank you, Adam Steele, for doing such a great job navigating the impossible: preparing a stability in financing Iredell Statesville Schools without adequate funding from our state legislators. Thank you for being the voice that advocates for public education for children who have no representation.
If I recall correctly, Jeff James took his position as superintendent right at the start of the pandemic. It seems he came into office vowing to consolidate jobs at the central office and save “taxpayer dollars”. I’d like to know how many positions he’s actually added at the central office (I can remember reading about several) and at what cost to Iredell County’s taxpayers. If the budget is going to be short money to pay for essential positions at schools… maybe some deep cuts need to be made at the top.
He cut more than half a million dollars from central office cuts and consolidations.
Yes, and has added at least 6 positions and taken a pay raise since making these “cuts” at the beginning of his tenure.