FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — The Fulton County School Board approved a $2.1 billion budget for the 2023-2024 school year at a June 6 meeting.
That’s about a 31 percent increase from the current year’s overall $1.6 billion budget.
The spending plan includes a 7.1 percent pay raise for all employees and goes into effect July 1.
The raise is split into a permanent 5.1 percent pay raise for all eligible employees which will cost the school district $42.5 million. The board also approved a one-time 2 percent pay bump to help increase employee retention. The payment, which will cost $14.8 million, only applies to staff who were employed in 2022-2023.
The budget is operating off a proposed millage rate of 17.24, but the countywide tax digest on property values won’t be available until later in the summer.
Fulton County Schools uses a modified approach to zero-based budgeting to cut unnecessary expenditures. With the zero-based budgeting approach, the district has a 95.5 percent spending rate. The county predicts that at the end of 2024 the ending fund balance will be about $358,704,353.
“This was a process that could have been extremely daunting, and you made it everything but,” Fulton County District 2 School Board member Lillie Pozatek said. “This was deep, it was a very long process, but I would say in a good way, it was exhaustive in preparation.”
The School Board also reviewed the district’s grading policy. Since 2019, district staff have worked on changes to grading standards, with adjustments for COVID-19 and a focus on engagement and implementation.
The grading policy went into effect in fall 2022. It standardized grading requirements across schools for things like giving out zeros, homework grades and communication. Under the new grading policy parents and guardians receive grade updates every 4.5 weeks.
In spring 2023, district…
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