Oconee County Schools took in $3.6 million more in revenue than anticipated in the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget, which ended on June 30, and spent $0.5 million more than expected when the Board of Education approved the budget in June of last year.
Oconee County Schools received $0.3 million less in federal funding in Fiscal Year 2025 than budgeted, and reduced the amount of spending by that same amount.
These figures come from the Amended General Fund Budget and the Amended Federal Funds Budget approved by the Board of Education at its meeting on Monday (July 7).
At that meeting, the Board also took a number of steps to revise existing policies and regulations, including replacing “United States Department of Education in school documents with “United States Department of Education or its successor.”
Chief Operations Officer Ryan White also informed the Board that new United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations will require Oconee County Schools to reduce to 10 percent this coming school year and 5 percent over the next five years purchases of food from non-domestic sources.
The School Board spent nearly four hours on Thursday and eight hours on Friday in the first round of interviews of prospective superintendent candidates at the law offices of Fortson, Bentley and Griffin, 2500 Daniells Bridge Road.
Board Chair Michael Ransom said after the session on Friday that the first round of interviews is not complete and additional special sessions will be announced by Steven Colquitt, Director Communications for Oconee County Schools.
Ransom would not say how many of the 19 applicants have been interviewed or will be interviewed in this first phase of interviews, but he did say “the Board has been extremely pleased with the candidates we have met with.”
Amended General Fund Budget
The amended end-of-year budget for Fiscal Year 2025 presented to the Board by Chief Financial Officer Peter Adams shows ad valorem tax revenue exceeding the budgeted amount by $584,622, the vehicle title tax exceeding the projected revenue by an even $1 million, and the investment and interest income exceeding the budgeted amount by more than $2 million.
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| Adams 7/7/2025 |
The Board had budgeted only for $50,000 in investment income. Last year, when it also budgeted only $50,000, its amended budget showed revenue of $2.4 million.
Funding from the state under the Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula was $62,312 less than budgeted, and the amount of the local share to that QBE formula funding was $7,902 more than budgeted.
Total revenue is $117.1 million, up from the budgeted $113.5 million.
Spending on direct instruction at $80.8 million was $1 million less than budgeted, on pupil services ($3.8 million) was $400,000 less than budgeted, and on student transportation services ($5.6 million) was $350,000 less than budgeted.
The amended budget lists $510,000 in unbudgeted spending for the School Resource Office program, $160,000 in unbudgeted spending for instructional staff training, and $1.6 million in unbudgeted construction services.
The total expenditures in the amended budget is $115.4 million, up from the originally budgeted $114.9 million.
The Amended Fiscal Year 2024 General Fund Budget had reflected a $4.5 million increase in revenue over the original budget, and an increase of $3.9 million in spending.
The spending increase in Fiscal Year 2024 included $5 million in unbudgeted construction spending and a $2 million decrease in spending on direct instruction.
Amended Federal Fund Budget
The amended Federal Funds Budget for Fiscal Year 2025 shows a decrease of $50,353 in Title II Part A Funding (Supporting Effective Instruction), a $256,158 decrease in Individual With Disability Act (IDEA) funding, and smaller decreases in other categories of funding.
Spending dropped to reflect the decreases in funding.
Oconee County Schools spends the money in the Federal Funds budget and then bills the Federal Government for reimbursement.
The original Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2025 listed $7.4 million in both revenue and spending, and that amount was dropped to $7.1 million in the amended budget approved by the Board on Monday.
Last year, the amended Federal Fund Budget for Fiscal Year 2024 showed in increase in funding and spending, from $7.3 million to $7.4 million
The IDEA funding and spending for last year was $2.7 million, both in the original and amended budget.
The original Fiscal Year 2025 Federal Funds Budget for Oconee County Schools also was $2.7 million, though the amount of actually funding was $2.4 million.
Other Financial Reports
In addition to the revised budgets, Chief Financial Officer Adams on Monday also released to the Board several of his usual monthly reports.
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| Adams (Back To Camera) Before Board 7/7/2025 |
Adams reported that the General Fund Cash Balance as of June 30 was $62.5 million, down from $63.6 on May 31, but up by $8.5 million from June 30 of 2024.
Adams also reported that the Education Local Option Sales Tax (ELOST) Fund stood at $13.8 million on June 30, up from $12.9 million a month earlier.
The Cash Balance report lists $13.7 million of that ELOST Cash Balance as in an escrow fund for debt service on the bonds sold by the Board to finance its construction program covered by ELOST and $137,729 designated as an ELOST construction Fund.
In June of 2024, $3.5 million was listed as in the escrow fund for the ELOST bonds, with $4,707 listed as in the ELOST construction fund.
In a separate ELOST Report, Adams on Monday listed $13.6 million as available ELOST funding.
Adams reported that ELOST collections for May of this year were $1.1 million, up 2.7 percent from the same month a year ago.
Collections have been more than $1 million per month for 12 of the last 16 months.
Modified Documents
The Board voted to put on the table for discussion modifications to six Board policies.
Jennifer Whitaker, Chief Academic Officer, told the Board that “As you are aware, we conduct an annual review of our policies and regulations. This year's updates reflect changes required by recent legislation.”
Whitaker told the Board that Board Policy JCB(1) Homeless Students “has been revised in compliance with Senate Bill 154, which requires us to update policies to include references to the US Department of Education or its successor.”
Senate Bill 154, passed by the Georgia General Assembly in March, states that Georgia Code “relating to education and professions and businesses are amended by inserting ‘or its successor’ after ‘United States Department of Education’ wherever the latter appears.”
Other policy changes put on the table for discussion deal with Employee Leave and Absences, Financial Reports, Transfer and Withdrawals, Gender Equity in Sports, and Suicide Prevention.
Witaker said she also was modifying Regulations on the Rights of Minors and on Equal Education Opportunity by inserting the “or its successor” after Board of Education, but she did not ask for Board approval of these changes in regulations.
Nutrition Changes
Chief Operations Officer White told the Board on Monday he wanted to give an “update on our school nutrition regulations.”
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| White 7/7/2025 |
“USDA has implemented a new regulation for next school year,” White said, “which only allows school systems to purchase up to 10 percent of their food from non-domestic sources.”
“This includes items like bananas, pineapples, mangoes, and mixed fruit,” he continued.
“Over the next five years, school system will be required to lower this percentage to 5 percent of their total food purchases,” he said.
“This is a new metric for Nutrition staff to monitor and report to DOE and USDA,” he said. DOE is Department of Education.
Personnel Report
Interim Superintendent Debra Harden announced at the beginning of her report to the Board on Monday that Jennifer Haygood has been named Director of Elementary Education, Mike Stanton is the new principal for Colham Ferry Elementary, and Eric Watson will be the principal of Malcom Bridge Elementary School.
Those appointments had been approved by the Board at its June meeting.
Haygood has been principal at Malcom Bridge Elementary School. Stanton has been assistant principal at Colham Ferry Elementary School. Watson has been assistant principal at Malcom Bridge Elementary School
Harden also announced that Suzanne Korngold, Assistant Superintendent of Special Education, has announced her retirement at the end of December.
The Board approved during its executive session the hiring of assistant principal Dori Davis at Oconee County Elementary and Jennifer Hutcherson at Rocky Branch Elementary. Both are new to Oconee County Schools.
Ransom On Search
The Board began its called meetings to interview candidates for superintendent at 8 a.m. on Thursday (July 10) and again at 8 a.m. on Friday (July 11) in a small meeting room at the third-floor offices of Fortson, Bentley and Griffin.
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| Voting To Go Into Executive Session 7/10/2025 |
The Board of Education has employed two other law firms, Hall, Booth, Smith, PC and Pereira, Kirby, Kinsinger and Nguyen as legal counsel for 2025.
After approving the agenda, on both days, the Board left that room and moved to another room.
According to Communications Director Colquitt, the Thursday session ended at 11:40 a.m. and the Friday session ended at 4:02 p.m.
In an email message just after 6 p.m. on Friday, Ransom said “The first phase of interviews isn't complete yet. Mr. Colquitt will announce any future special sessions as they're scheduled.”
“We are not at a point yet where we have a specific timeline for what will occur next,” Ransom wrote.
“Instead of providing a specific number of interviews,” Ransom wrote in response to a question from me, “I will share that the Board has been extremely pleased with the candidates we have met with and that we have really enjoyed getting to spend time with them.”
“Each one has impressive credentials and skill sets,” he continued. “The Board is committed to doing what is best long-term for Oconee County Schools, and this process is a critical part of that.”
Jason Branch stepped down as superintendent effective June 30.
Video
At the meeting on Monday, Oconee County School Superintendent Debra Harden reported that she had asked school Chief Operations Officer White to have a third party conduct testing for mold at Oconee County Elementary School.
Parents of children at Oconee County Elementary School have complained repeatedly in recent months about the possibility of mold at the school and asked for independent testing, even offering to contribute to funding the testing if necessary.
Four citizens spoke during the public comment section of the meeting on Monday, all of them expressing concern about the possibility of mold.
I reported on that part of the meeting on July 7, but I delayed reporting on the remaining parts of the meeting because I did not have the documents I needed to do.
Although the Board members had these documents in front of them for the meeting, and all but the personnel recommendations were displayed briefly on the screen during the meeting, the documents were not released to the public and made available online until the next day.
I shot the video below of that meeting from the rear of the meeting room, following the restrictions imposed by the Board of Education.
I also attended the meetings on Thursday and Friday, but I left the law offices about 10 a.m. on Friday and shortly after noon on Friday because of other commitments each of those days.
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