Stephens BOE Set To Approve Budget Tonight

The Stephens County Board of Education will meet today and is expected to vote on the final Fiscal Year 2016 budget.

School board members are set to meet at 5:30 p.m. today at the Stephens County School System Administrative Offices on Mize Road in Toccoa for a called meeting to set the budget for this fiscal year.

Last month, the Board of Education voted 5-2 to approve a tentative budget for Fiscal Year 2016 that lowers the millage rate from 20 mills to 19.75 mills and also lowers the number of calendar reduction days by four, from 16 to 12.

Stephens County School Superintendent Bryan Dorsey said the tentative Fiscal Year 2016 budget brings in $33,528,505 in projected revenues and spends $30,663,108 in projected expenditures.

Dorsey says that leaves an estimated fund balance of $2,862,390 as of the end of Fiscal Year 2016.

According to Dorsey, starting this fund balance is important to move the school system away from borrowing money and to give it some financial security.

He says his eventual goal is a $5 million fund balance, which he says would eliminate the need for the school system to borrow money to fund operations until tax revenue came in.

Board members Rod Moore and Dr. Elizabeth Pinkerton voted against both the millage rate decrease and the tentative budget.

Moore said that with the school system making so many changes, cutting revenue based off of guesses on spending is not something he feels comfortable with.

Also, both Moore and Pinkerton said they would rather leave the millage rate alone for one more year and make a larger decrease next year once the school system had a better idea of the change in expenses.