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Local Request Up 7 Percent
The Lexington School Board approved an updated proposed budget for the upcoming 2024/2025 school year at its meeting last week, taking into account changing state funding and lowering the amount to be requested from City Council.
“We h ave b een h ard a t work this semester trying to get our budget to a place where w e a re s upporting the initiatives of the School Board, the school district, but also keeping in mind the strengths of our city, in terms of providing the funding,” Superintendent Rebecca Walters told the school board.
“We’ve come back, since the initial budget was presented to you in February; we’ve made some modifications,” she said.
The FY25 budget proposal totals $9.5 million, as compared to the $8.8 million budget approved last year. It is also higher than the amount proposed at the February meeting of the School Board, which was around $9.4 million.
However, the division’s request to City Council has been lowered from the $3.8 million proposed in the original draft.
The local funding request approved last week was around $3.7 million, a 7% increase from the $3.5 million local share in the FY24 budget.
The current budget proposal maintains a 3% salary increase for district employees.
“Every employee gets that. I want you to understand that regardless of what step you are on in our salary scale, you receive at least a 3% increase,” Walters said.
Salaries for food service workers will see further modifications, adjusting the minimum starting wage to $15 an hour.
Since the February presentation, the district has received updated projections of health insurance costs, which are expected to rise by 11%.
“This draft budget does reflect the school division’s contribution being increased at an equitable rate across the board, to try to absorb most of this increase for employees,” business manager Erin Gregg explained.
Changes at both the state and local levels have allowed the division to decrease its local funding request.
“Since our February meeting, we have seen adjustments in the state funding from both the House and the Senate budgets, though these have not yet been approved,” said Gregg. “Because of this, we modified our revenue lines to reflect the estimated increase to state revenues.
“Our state revenues have increased, and so we were able to decrease our local ask for the city of Lexington. So our total budget is just slightly larger, but our local contribution is lower.”
Lexington schools also made adjustments to its draft budget, notably around $60,000 budgeted for potential participation in the Community Eligibility Provision.
The program, which provides student meals free of charge with partial reimbursements to qualifying districts, was included as a budget consideration in the February drafts but did not make the approved budget.
The budget approved last week will now be sent to City Council, though it is still subject to change pending approval of a final state budget.
