Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By LEAH INGRAM EAGLE | Special to the Reporter

PELHAM – The Pelham City Schools Board of Education held a special called meeting on Sept. 10 during which the school board approved the fiscal year 2025 budget. This was the second budget meeting, the first was held on Aug. 27.

To plan for the budget, planning staffing meetings and discussions were held with principals and other administrators to determine unique building needs based on student needs and data. Then, each district administrator developed a projection of needs that was supported by data to show how they are impactful to learning.

The capital project needs, based on the 5 Year Capital Plan were also determined, along with revenue estimates and state/federal allocations. Finally, adjustments were made after initial estimates if the funding was not available for all requests.

For the FY2025 budget for Pelham City Schools, estimated revenues for all funds, which includes revenues and other fund sources, totaled $70.5 million. With 52 percent of those being local funds, 42.4 percent state funds and 5.4 percent federal funds.

“The last few months of the fiscal year, we’ve been looking at our county wide tax and our Pelham city sales taxes and these are the first years in the history of Pelham we’ve seen a decline in either one of those,” CFO Lauren Butts said. “We are projecting declines in both countywide and Pelham city sales tax for next year. It’s not significant, but we are projecting a 1-2 percent decline, not for ad valorem though.”

Butts said the school system has seen a 6-10 percent growth over the past four to five years, but now they are now starting to see a 1-2 percent decline.

“It’s not overly concerning, but something we watch,” Butts said. “People are spending less and being more cautious. The more people shop online, the slower our Pelham city sales tax are.”

The Alabama State Department of Education requires that school systems maintain a one-month operating balance, which for Pelham is $4.3 million. The budget end of year balance was estimated at $14.7 million, which is approximately 3.4 months of reserves.

The $60.7 million in expenditures breaks down to:

• Personnel costs = 58.12 percent at $35 million
• Professional services/utilities = 13.75 percent at $8.3 million
• Materials, supplies, fees, capital projects = 19.42 percent at $11 million
• Debt = 8.71 percent at $5.3 million

Butts said that last year’s debt was presented at $4.9 million, but the presentation was done a bit differently. Bus debt was presented under a different category, and debt on property and improvements were presented in a different category. This year, they were presented all together, which accounts for the difference between $4.9 million and $5.3 million as being the bus debt.

Pelham City Schools has 434 employees, including 271 staff, 134 support personnel and an additional 30 contracted support personnel.

Pelham High School has the largest projected enrollment at 1,066 students. Pelham Park Middle School has 822; Pelham Ridge Elementary School has 772 and Pelham Oaks Elementary School has 731.

All of the budget information is available online at Pelhamcityschools.org.