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School District Budget & Millage Rate Questions

August 25, 2025; Questions from Rob Kicklighter

Question: Can you explain miscellaneous revenue? What does that mean?

Answer: In the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget, miscellaneous revenues are projected to be $1,598,806. The miscellaneous revenue line item groups many different types of revenue that the school district receives that is not local, federal, or state revenue. It includes items like the following:

  • Medicaid billing of $1.1 million. We bill Medicaid for medically necessary health services provided to Medicaid-eligible students
  • Capstone payments of $57,000. These funds we receive from Georgia Southern to pay our teachers who supervise a Georgia Southern student teacher. The funds are paid to the school district, and then the district pays the funds to the designated teachers.
  • Indirect costs of federal grants of approximately $100,000. The school district is allowed to allot three percent of the federal grant funds we receive to our General Fund to cover administrative costs of administering the grants, like accounting services, payroll, etc.
  • Background checks for new and existing employees of $24,000. All school district employees are required to submit to a background check as a condition of employment. It is done when an employee is first hired and every five years thereafter. Employees have to pay the school district to conduct these, and then the school district pays that same amount to the company that provides the service. 
  • Coastal Plains Charter School  lease payments of $150,000. Coastal Plains Charter School leases the Transitions Learning Center space in the evenings for its classes.
  • E-Rate revenue of $78,000. E-Rate is the Universal Service Schools and Libraries Program. It is a federal program that provides discounts on telecommunications and internet services for eligible schools and libraries. These discounts help provide us access to affordable technology and connectivity for education and community engagement. The program is funded through fees collected on phone bills and is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company. We receive a portion of those fees.
  • Scribbles transcript services of $4,500. We provide an online service on our websites for alumni, current students, post-secondary institutions, corporations, and government agencies to request student records. This is the revenue from the payments of those transactions.
  • Transportation services of $25,000. These are payments received for transportation services we provided to entities like Bulloch County 4H and the Georgia School for the Blind to transport students for them.
  • This revenue can include the sale of surplus equipment on the Gov Deals website
  • Open records requests of $800. Most of the open records requests we receive we handle at no or low cost. For those that require extensive administrative work to prepare, we do charge an hourly rate.
  • Billboard rental revenue. The district receives this rental revenue from a billboard company that has a billboard on our property.
  • Campus payments revenue. The district, using Infinite Campus, has established online payment options and online school stores for our schools. This provides parents a convenient way to pay for certain field trips, yearbooks, spirit wear, or whatever items the school has placed in its school store. The district collects the transaction fees from the credit card charges as revenue, but then that is paid back out to the credit card companies, so it's a wash.

Question: What category on the budget expense does the board office fall in? General Administration , School Administration, or Business Administration?

Answer: First, it's important to note that the names of the classifications for revenues and expenses come from Georgia's state chart of accounts. Georgia school districts are required to use the state chart of accounts that is maintained by the Georgia Department of Education  for their budgets and financial reporting, which is incorporated into the state's requirements for financial record-keeping. You may access the state chart of accounts here. Once on the website, click on the Classification tab at the top, then click on the drop-down arrow next to Classification and select Function. This will bring up the list of function accounts, then you can click on the little notepad icon next to each one, and it will give you a description of exactly what those expenses for that function are. 

For Bulloch County Schools' Central Office, its expenses are in General Administration, Business Administration, and Central Support Services. 

  • General Administration: These are activities concerned with establishing and administering policy for operating the school district. These include the activities of the members of the Board of Education. Local activities in interpretation of the laws and statutes and general liability situations are charged here, as are the activities of external auditors. Also recorded here are activities performed by the superintendent and the superintendent's administrative assistant. This would include retainers for legal counsel, software used by the board for creating, storing, and sharing its board documents, like the Simbli system.
  • Business Administration:  These are the employees and activities of our Business Services and Finance departments for the fiscal operation of the school district including budgeting, financial services, W2 processing for employees, and property accounting, payroll, inventory control, internal auditing and managing funds, purchasing, warehouse and distribution operations, copier leases to print, publish and duplicate; postage services, liability insurance, property insurance, the district's Smart Fusion accounting/budgeting software; it's license is $75,000 annually, and E-trieve procurement and electronic forms software.
  • School Administration: These are school-level expenses only to cover the cost of all school office personnel and their activities. There are no Central Office expenses in this area. It includes the cost and activities of principals, assistant principals, data clerks, bookkeepers, attendance clerks, secretaries. Anyone who works in the offices of our 15 schools, the Transitions Learning Center and the Learners Involved in Flexible Education program.

Question: Educational Media Services of $ 2,004,113. What does this consist of?

Answer: Educational media services is activities concerned with directing, managing and operating each of our 15 schools' media centers, which are the school libraries, the media specialists who staff them, any media center paraprofessionals, the audio-visual services and equipment they need, plus any licenses for educational television.

Question: There is a difference in revenue on 2025 to 2026 is approx 4 million. If we are 15 million over budget and only collecting  an additional 4 million. Where is the rest coming from?

Answer: If we are understanding your question correctly, the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget had a $13.2 million deficit. The Fiscal Year 2027 Budget is projected to have a $15 million deficit, because the loss of state revenue due to Bulloch County's growing property wealth will continue, as well as predicted inflationary increases in the state-required portion of employee benefits and retirement that the school district pays. 

Based on the Tax Digest and Five-Year History of Levy, the school district is projected to collect $11,972,725 more in taxes with the new 10.400 millage rate. Of that, 2.5%, approximately $982,000 will go back to Bulloch County in fees paid to them for collecting the school district's taxes. The remaining funds to make up the projected $15 million deficit for Fiscal Year 2027 will come from $3.5 million in budget cuts, the majority of which the superintendent has announced will come from the Central Office. The district has already cut is team of instructional coaches for 2026/2027.