The Fort Mill School District is adjusting its budget after learning it will receive about $1 million less in state funding than expected.
YORK COUNTY, S.C. โ The Fort Mill School District is working to close a roughly $1 million budget gap after learning it will receive less state funding than expected.
The issue comes as the school board prepares to review and vote on the district’s final budget recommendation Tuesday night.
District leaders say they initially built their budget based on state projections that showed a slight increase in funding for the upcoming year. However, they recently learned those projections had changed due to errors in charter school enrollment estimates used in the state’s funding formula.
As a result, Fort Mill is now facing an unexpected shortfall.
“They did the recalculations under the funding formula and now it looks like we’re actually having a shift of a million dollars, so we’re going to lose that projected increase and we have a decrease of about $500,000 against the current budget of this year,” Joe Burke, Chief Communications Officer for Fort Mill School District, said.
According to Burke, Fort Mill is not the only district affected.
He says nearly every school district in South Carolina is seeing funding adjustments because of the issue, with only two districts reportedly unaffected.
“They were apologetic the numbers had shifted again. We try to time our budget process out so we’re working with what we believe is going to be the final projections,” Burke said.
District leaders say they have been working closely with the South Carolina Department of Education and state officials to understand the impact and adjust their plans accordingly.
Despite the funding loss, Burke says the district’s chief financial officer has developed a revised budget proposal that still meets the district’s needs while considering the impact on taxpayers.
“So now what we’re going to propose tonight is a $10.5 mil increase to our general fund budget, which is paid by business owners and rental properties and things like that, but we’re also going to provide hopefully a $2 mil decrease on the debt side,” Burke said.
District officials say that plan would allow York County to maintain the current $8.5 million rate for businesses while providing homeowners with a $2 million tax reduction.
Fort Mill school leaders say the revised budget proposal should allow the district to continue funding its priorities despite the unexpected reduction in state funding.
WCNC Charlotte reached out to the South Carolina Department of Education for comment regarding the funding issue but has not yet received a response.
The Fort Mill School Board is expected to discuss and potentially approve the revised budget during Tuesday night’s meeting.
For the latest breaking news, weather and traffic alerts that impact you from WCNC Charlotte, download the WCNC Charlotte mobile app and enable push notifications.
