The Gainesville City School System revealed its tentative budget for the upcoming fiscal year at a school board meeting Monday and it includes a partially rolled back millage rate and increased pay for a number of employees.
Gainesville City Schools Superintendent Jeremy Williams presented the budget to the board, saying the tentative budget would total over $82 million with most of the increase, about $6 million, from last year's budget going to pay increases for staff. According to documents shown by the school system, all pay scales will be increased by three percent with some step scales also being added along with a $2,000 certified scale increase signed by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.
Williams said most of the rest of the budget increase is due to the opening of the newly build Gainesville Middle School West, which will open in the fall. He said the system still needs to fill some positions for that school.
"We've tried over the last two to three years to hire some of those in advance so that they could work at GMS East and then split when the time came, but some of those like a media specialist and a media clerk, some clerical support staff, some teachers that were splitting across schools, that starts to add in," Williams said. "You talk about bringing a whole new building on board, the utility cost is something that was not in our budget this year, so we have to account for that."
The budget also shows a millage rate rollback from 6.395 to 6.195 mills. While that still does not represent a full rollback, Williams said it is the lowest the millage rate has been in many years.
The school board will hold three public hearings on the proposed budget and millage rate before taking a final vote to approve both at 5:30 p.m. on June 21. The dates and times for those hearings are listed below:
- Monday, June 13 at 6:00 p.m.
- Tuesday, June 21 at 11:00 a.m.
- Tuesday, June 21 at 5:00 p.m.
More details on the tentative budget can be found on the school system's website.
