Coweta County School Board gives ‘Tentative’ Approval of 2025-26 Budget

From Coweta County School System Press Release

The Coweta County Board of Education gave tentative approval to a Coweta County School System operational budget of $316,140,493 for the 2025-2026 fiscal year (FY 2026), at their regular meeting on Tuesday, June 10.

Tuesday’s vote was the first of two formal votes on the new year’s budget, as required by state law.  It follows budget workshops held by the school board in May.  The board is expected to give final approval to the new school year’s budget at a called meeting on Tuesday, June 24.  Following that final approval, the new budget will take effect for the school system’s new fiscal year beginning July 1.

The FY 2026 budget does not project an increase in the local property tax rate of 15.41 mills.  Millage rates for local property taxes are set in July, following the establishment of the local property tax digest by the county tax assessors office.  The Board of Education can also adjust school system tax rates for school operations based on the annual property tax digest, once the actual digest is received.

The school system operates on a fiscal year that extends from July 1 until June 30 of the following year. The budget covers school system operations and other expenditures during the upcoming fiscal year. It is also based on revenue estimates including anticipated state educational funding during the upcoming year and current estimates of local property tax revenue.

The school system faces a number of challenges in preparing its FY 2026 budget, including absorbing a deficit of state funding when compared to state-required increases to local systems.  The state of Georgia has passed on an anticipated $10,156,213 in required costs to the Coweta School System this year, in the form of locally-required increases in State Health benefits (insurance) costs and state mandated local contributions to the Teachers Retirement System (retirement benefits), and $170,000 in mandated local costs for supplements to school custodial staff.

While these state-mandated costs total over $10.1 million in FY 2026, the Coweta school system is receiving $5,857,172 in additional state operational funds during the upcoming fiscal year, due to the way that the state’s funding formula works for counties like Coweta.

Considering those and other challenges, the FY 2026 budget approved Tuesday achieves several goals of the school board, including:

• Maintaining the current student calendar of 180 instructional days, and the current instructional program for students for the upcoming year.

• Absorbing all state-mandated increases in health insurance costs and Teacher Retirement System (TRS) costs for certified and classified employees.

• Passing on state-funded step increases for certified (classroom teacher) employees.

• Matching those step increases with local funds to provide step increases for all Coweta certified and classified personnel, where due based on years of experience.

• Providing a 2 percent Cost of Living Raise (COLA) to all Coweta School System employees with wholly local funding, in order to maintain the competitiveness of the system.

• Adding six growth positions for school (5 Remedial Teachers, 1 Regular Ed Teacher), while reducing three positions elsewhere to adjust for changes in grade level populations.

• Increasing funding for school safety improvements.

In addition to the General Fund, there were three other components tentatively approved by the board as a part of its total FY 2026 budget.

These include $35,361,122 in anticipated expenditures through the Special Revenue Fund, which accounts for special federal programs such as Title I, federal lunch programs, and IDEA.

Also included is $44,003,916 in anticipated expenditures through the Capital Projects Fund, which accounts for construction and other capital expenditures during the year.  School construction is funded principally by revenues from the Educational Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST), through which the system follows a “pay as you go” strategy for school construction projects. The system also receives some earned state funding for construction. Funding under this line item can fluctuate from year-to-year, depending on the scale of construction projects undertaken by the school system during a given fiscal year, such as last year’s rebuilding of Newnan High School.

Since the school system has no current debt, no expenditures are required in the system’s Debt Service fund in FY 2026.

The FY 2026 General Fund budget of $316 million is the largest portion of funding in the school system’s annual budget, including expenditures for instruction and pupil services, maintenance and operation of schools, transportation, and other operational costs.  The General Fund budget is funded principally by state revenues and local property tax revenues. The tentative budget approved Tuesday anticipates an overall increase in state funding of $5.8 million, various special purpose grants, and 5.00 percent in anticipated growth in the local tax digest with the current school millage rate maintained.

Those funds, combined with the maintenance and operation fund, total $395,505,531.  This total budget is slightly lower than FY2025, due to decreased expenditures for school system capital projects.

The Board of Education has decreased the school system’s ad valorem millage rate in four of the past five years – to a current 15.41 mill property tax rate. These decreases have left the Coweta County School System with one of the lowest school system tax rates in the metro Atlanta and West Georgia region, and the lowest recorded tax rate for Coweta Schools since the 1980’s.

In addition to these tax rate decreases, the school board also expanded senior citizen tax exemptions through local referendum in 2020, and has called for a November, 2025 referendum to expand them again, including a 100 percent exemption for seniors 75 and older.

Information detailing revenues and expenditures in the school system’s FY 2026 budget can be found on the school system’s website at www.cowetaschools.net, under Financial Information (click on the tabs for “Budget Information – FY 2026”). The page provides links to current FY 2024 revenue and expenditure detail, and also includes several years of school system budget information, millage history, tax digest information, school system annual audit reports and annual ESPLOST reports.