‘As lean as we can be:’ HCS on a tight budget
Haywood County’s school system, like many local public entities, is operating on a limited budget for the upcoming fiscal year. File photo
Haywood County Schools is working with a tight budget for the coming year.
After making cuts where possible over the last few years, Superintendent Trevor Putnam told county commissioners last week that the school system was as lean as it could be and would dip into its fund balance for the second year in a row in order to balance the budget for the 2025-26 school year.
“We’re as lean as I would allow us to be,” said Putnam.
During the first six months of Putnam’s tenure, he said he cut 42 positions, both faculty and administration at the Central Office. But now, Putnam says, there’s no more cutting to be done.
For the 2025-26 fiscal year, the school system is limiting budgetary expansions. It is requesting a $18,285,134 allocation from the county and will allocate $719,483.75 from its fund balance, which, along with ABC revenues and fines and forfeitures, will bring revenues equal to estimated expenses of $19,373,617.75.
“I do want to emphasize the use of fund balance,” said Putnam. “Our revenues are not matching our expenses so we’re having to use fund balance, and this is the second year in a row.”
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A 1.5-cent increase on the county’s tax rate in 2023 continues to provide annual funding to the Sheriff’s Office for school resource officers in every school at an annual cost of about $1.48 million.
The primary focus points for Haywood County Schools’ 2025-26 budget are to recruit, retain and support employees, limit expansion items in the local current expense budget and adjust the budget as needed to account for loss of ESSER funding, declining enrollment and associated issues with the Canton mill closure.
Several factors are impacting the creation of the 2025-26 budget for Haywood County Schools, including the loss of ESSER III funding which provided an additional allocation of $15,692,592 to Haywood County Schools.
“These funds were expended over four years,” said Finance Officer Leanna Moody. “We got these funds in the 2021-22 fiscal year, and they ended in September of 2024. So, we had them for three months this [fiscal] year.”
Salary-related expenses paid with ESSER funds for the current fiscal year totaled $878,278. Haywood County Schools did not pay for newly created positions using ESSER funds, but some were used for remediation tutoring and to help offset some expenses paid for by local funds.
“That is a huge impact affecting our budget this coming year,” Moody said.
What’s more, Haywood County Schools lost 117 students this year, and that reduction will be reflected in the 2025-26 fiscal year state, federal and local funding allocations.
Additionally, after the mill closure in Canton in 2023, Putnam was able to secure a $3 million grant from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. Those funds were used to offset some local expenses for utilities, to the tune of about $1 million during the current fiscal year.
“We will not have those next year, so that’s a huge hit to our budget for next year,” said Moody.
According to Moody, utility costs have increased approximately $450,000 over a two-year period.
The anticipated county per-pupil appropriation rate is $2,591.43 for the 6,370 Haywood County School students, plus 686 charter school students. This is up $81.57 from the county per pupil allocation rate of $2,509.86 in the current year budget.
The loss of 117 students has significant impacts on next year’s budget.
“I want to bring this into perspective,” said Moody. “If our ADM had remained the same, and we hadn’t lost those 117 students, our county appropriation this coming fiscal year would have been $18,544,273. So just the loss of those students, that’s a net loss of $259,000 to the school system.”
“The current funding formula provides a 3.25% per pupil appropriation increase; but however, due to the loss of the students, the total percentage increase will only reflect about a 1.81% increase in overall funding,” Moody Continued.
The fiscal year 2025-26 anticipated county appropriation is $18,285,134. This amount is combined with $345,000 in fines and forfeitures, $24,000 in ABC revenues and a $719,483.75 fund balance allocation to make revenues equal expenditures, for a total $19,373,617.75 local current expense budget. This marks the second year in a row that the school system has had to allocate more than $700,000 from its fund balance to balance the budget.
In addition to the annual state public schools allocation, which has not been finalized for the 2025-26 fiscal year but sits at $53,341,808 in the current fiscal year, commissioners were curious about state lottery funding for the school system.
“Years ago, they said that was the magic wand to help us with our budgeting woes and to help bolster the local county’s budget for their school systems,” said Commissioner Tommy Long.
According to Putnam, the school system receives a little over $600,000 annually in lottery funds, which can only be used for capital projects.
“That’s probably not the cure all that maybe we were led to believe it would be,” said Long.
According to the North Carolina Department of Education, about 30% of lottery revenue goes to education.
The North Carolina Education Lottery website paints a somewhat different and misleading picture, claiming that in fiscal year 2024, a total of $3,083,000 went to education programs in Haywood County.
In 2024, the NC Education Lottery saw record sales of $5.4 billion.
In the coming year Haywood County Schools will remain eligible for the Community Eligibility Provision which provides federal reimbursement so that all students can access free breakfast and lunch.
“The problem is, the reimbursement rate is not a full reimbursement of what it actually costs us to produce the meal, so you’ve been seeing a loss in that area,” said Putnam. “We’re going to continue to do it; it’s the right thing. Our kids need the meals. We’re going to continue to seek money.”
Haywood County Schools currently ranks sixth in the state out of 115 school districts.
“Kudos to the school system and everybody in it,” said Commissioner Jennifer Best. “I deal with people that are moving here, and I always say we have a really strong school system. I always try to throw that number out that we’re sixth out of 115.”
