001I'm trying to make sure everybody Is everybody got their hand up? Yes. Let's go. Oh. Good evening and welcome to the Wednesday, May 6th uh budget hearing. This is a hearing, which means that we are here to listen to the public. Uh we will have a presentation from our staff, and then we will listen to the public. That's all we do. Please. Good evening. My name is Page Cooley, and I'm the budget director for Savannah-Chatham County Public School System, and I will be going over a brief presentation on the budget for fiscal year '27. Tonight's presentation outlines how we are aligning every dollar with our strategic priorities for student achievement. We remain committed to fiscal responsibility, transparent budgeting, efficient use of public funds, and ensuring our community understands how resources are used. This budget supports
002safe, modern learning environments. It strengthens recruitment and retention, and it expands academic and social-emotional supports. We are also emphasizing return on investment, evaluating whether our spending is producing measurable improvements. Strategic Plan 2031. The budget is built to advance four pillars of the strategic plan. Our fiscal year 2027 budget is directly tied to the strategic plan 2020 2031 creating a future-ready student experience. Pillar one focuses on academic excellence, literacy, numeracy, student engagement, and future-focused pathways. Pillar two strengthens our workforce. Recruitment, retention, coaching, and leadership development. Pillar three evaluates engagement with families and partners. Pillar four ensures operational excellence, modernizing data systems, transportation, facilities, and financial stewardship. Budget public hearings. We are committed to transparency. This is the first of two budget hearings. Millage rate hearings follow in June culminating in final adoption on June 24th. We
003encourage public participation throughout this process. Millage rate history. Our millage rate has steadily decreased over time from 18.881 mills in 2020 to 17.331 mills today. This reflects our commitment to responsible stewardship while still meeting students' needs. Millage rate comparison. SCCPSS's millage rate remains in the middle of the pack compared to other Georgia districts. We are lower than many other large districts such as Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb, and Atlanta. This context is important as we balance affordability for taxpayers with the needs of our students. Influencing factors. Several forces shape our fiscal year 2027 budget. Economic conditions, enrollment trends, inflation, and state mandates. We are also aligning resources with the strategic plan and incorporating community and board feedback. Long-term sustainability remains a priority. Economic and enrollment factors determine the district's funding levels and the types of services required.
004Rising costs such as inflation, transportation, utilities, and the expansion of student support services are putting pressure on our district operations. The district's shift towards modified zero-based budgeting means programs must demonstrate measurable outcomes to justify funding. Workforce challenges remain a major driver, especially in hard-to-fill positions. Community engagement continues to shape priorities and long-term planning ensures responsible stewardship of resources. Budget overview. Departments submitted mandatory, baseline, and strategic request. The total preliminary request is 683.7 million, a 2% increase from fiscal year 26. Most growth is driven by mandatory costs, which includes the benefits, retirement, and step increases. Strategic investments are targeted and aligned with our pillars. Key academic initiatives include school transformation, math textbook adoption, mental health expansion, and early childhood Montessori integration. Operational initiatives include AI readiness training, leadership development, a formative assessment platform, and expanded transportation
005options. Engagement initiatives include enrollment recovery campaigns and enhanced family engagement staffing. This slide shows some additional strategic investments. Mandatory personnel cost growth. Mandatory personnel cost increases total $12.4 million. This includes our teachers retirement system increases, our state health benefit increases, and step increases. These are required to maintain our current workforces. COLA cost of living allowance scenarios. We modeled several COLA scenarios. A 3% COLA, our starting point, adds $12.7 million to personnel cost. We are continuing to evaluate affordability as revenue projections are finalized. Fiscal year 27 preliminary general fund budget. The preliminary general fund budget totals 708 708.8 million, which is a 6% increase from fiscal year 26. This includes mandatory cost growth and the preliminary cola assumption. School allocations represent the largest share of the budget. Revenue assumptions. Revenue projections depend on property values, enrollment,
006QBE funding, and legislative decisions. We are using a conservative assumption, 5% growth in property values, and a 1.2% enrollment decline. The model currently assumes maintaining the millage rate at 17.331 mills. Fiscal year 27 total general fund projected revenues equal $711.9 million. Local revenue remains our largest funding source. Current budget request and surplus. Based on current assumption assumptions, we project a 3.1 million surplus. This would contribute to fund balance and support long-term stability. These numbers will adjust once the final tax digest is released. Our all funds projected expenditures across all funds, general fund, debt service, capital projects, and special revenue, the total projected expenditures are $992 million for fiscal year 27. This reflects the full scope of district operations. On this slide, you can see it shows how much our fund balance at this point based
007on our projections, we would be contributing $3.1 million to fund balance. Looking at all the various funds, each fund is balanced with revenues matching expenditures. Special revenue funds include federal programs such as Title 1, special education, and pre-K. Internal service funds cover workers' compensation, unemployment, and legacy dental plan obligations. Um, as you can see on this slide, there is a footnote at the bottom that explains that that employee dental plan, there's no revenues because it's from prior years and it has carried forward. This is when our dental plan was self-insured and once we discontinued the self-insured dental plan, we the total claims and expenses were less than the amount collected and as a result, we still have a remaining fund balance. Our goal is a budget that is sent student-centered, transparent, and sustainable. We welcome
008community input as we refine the fiscal year 27 budget ahead of final adoption in June. Together, we can ensure every student has access to choice-filled to a choice-filled future. Thank you. Thank you very much. And since this is a hearing, I will ask if there's anyone from the public who would like to speak. Please come and speak. Please give us your name and and you have 3 minutes. I guess I'm the public. Yes. >> [laughter] >> Mr. Moss, board members, Dr. Watts, thank you. >> [snorts] >> Uh I was here of course this morning for the finance committee and it was mentioned several times that 85% of the budget is people, head count. Um I've written a couple letters to the board over the last couple weeks talking about in a complex large organization there
009is generally a large number of people who are underperforming in the system. Uh >> [clears throat] >> 10% generally. I use this as an example of my experience in the company I left at the end of uh when I retired. It was one of the most successful companies in the world and in the country. Uh very profitable, fast-growing, highly successful. In 2001 when the dot-com bubble burst, it hit a roadblock and it had to have a layoff. This was very embarrassing to the CEO who had prided himself in never laying anybody off. But the company had a 10% layoff and people were shocked. They thought the roof was falling in. As it turned out, there was very little difference in productivity once that 10% left because it was the bottom 10%. Every department was told
010you got to lose 10% and they would get rid of their lowest performing person and overall productivity hardly changed. My assessment is or my assertion is, that in the school district where for years we have not held employees accountable. That there is a base of underperformers that could also be released and enable us to have a stable budget flat from last year. After the board meeting today, or the finance committee meeting today, I went home and looked at the numbers. So, the 2026 budget, or actually the adjusted budget for last year, was $570 million in personnel cost. The full-time equivalent employees was 5,614. That comes out to a cost per employee of a little over $100,000 per employee. That's the full loaded cost with insurance and benefits and all that. The proposed budget increase this
011year is roughly $40 million. So, if you set our goal is to have a flat budget from last year to this year, we would have to reduce somewhat under 400 employees. Which sounds like a lot of people, but it is 7%. So, it's in that 5 to 10% range that I talked about. That would allow us to give the rest of the employees cost of living increases 3.3% step increases. It will allow us to accomplish all the strategic initiatives that Dr. Watson and her team have laid out. And uh we'd have lost a significant number of non-performers and I think performance would actually increase. So, to me this is a no-brainer. This is what we need to do. We need to keep a flat budget and we need to have a layoff. Thank you. Anyone
012else? All right. Uh I will accept a motion to adjourn. All in favor? See you again in a while. All right. Thank all of you for a long day.