The Ware County Board of Education officially adopted the Fiscal Year 2023-24 budget of $96 million during its monthly meeting and updated its calendar for the upcoming school year.
The FY24 budget passed during the Tuesday, June 13 meeting as did the school calendar.
The BOE released a $96,065,805 budget proposal in May. The budget surpassed the FY23 budget of $90,222,435 by nearly $6 million ($5,843,370).
The numbers released by Superintendent Bert Smith shows $53,930,555 combined coming from state QBE (The Quality Basic Education Act) and Equalization monies — an increase of $4,920,170 over FY23 ($ 49,010,385).
QBE sets out the provisions for educational funding for grades Kindergarten through 12. Pre-K is not funded through QBE.
The school system projected $15,168,000 in local taxes received compared to $15,120,000 in FY23.
The BOE sets its budget to monies received from QBE, Equalization, projected tax revenue, and other incoming local taxes.
Expenditures include instructional salaries, support salaries (custodians, bus drives, School Nutrition Program workers, Board office, secretaries) as well as instructional operations and supportive operations.
The budget shows $47,617,682 ($42,685,208 in FY23) for instruction; $6,867,758 ($6,401,763) for Maintenance and Operations; $4,426,352 ($4,082,705) for Transportation; $5,124,816 ($4,620,107) for School Administration; $3,782,803 ($3,291,387) for Pupil Services; and $1,598,381 ($1,464,392) for Educational Media Services as line items surpassing $1 million in spending.
As for the changes in the school calendar, the first was full week for Fall Break in October (October 16-20) rather than a long weekend as originally planned.
Another change has students returning for the second semester Wednesday, January 3, 2024 instead of January 4.
March 29, 2024 is now listed as an instructional day instead of a professional learning day.
The last change made to the calendar puts the students last day of school Wednesday, May 22, 2024 with post-planning ending Friday, May 24.
