Gwinnett County Public Schools Recommended 2014 budget
Total budget — $1.763 billion, down $12.8 million or less than 1 percent
General fund budget (covering day-to-day operations) — $1.258 billion, up $29.7 million or 2.4 percent
Average expenditure per student — $7,548, up $102 per student or 1.4 percent
Projected enrollment — 166,667, up 1,690 or 1 percent
Would eliminate two furlough days for all employees: cost $8.6 million
Add 18 school resource officers: cost $1.7 million.
Add 85 teacher positions due to enrollment growth: cost $6.2 million
Includes a $14.6 million cost increase for health insurance for employees
Includes $21.8 million extra in equalization grant earnings based on system’s ranking as 100th out of 180 school districts in property wealth per student
Class sizes wouldn’t increase, and unpaid furlough days for teachers and staff would become a thing of the past under a nearly $1.3 billion budget being proposed for Gwinnett County Public Schools.
The state’s largest school district also would hire about 85 teachers and nearly double the size of its school security force under the budget proposal being unveiled this week by CEO and superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks.
The district is still feeling the effects of the weak economy. Property tax revenues are down, but less than they have been in the past, said Rick Cost, the school system’s chief financial officer.
“It is better, but we’re not out of the woods,” he said.
Still, for the first time in four years the district is planning to end furlough days and to resist bumping up class sizes.
For teachers, the elimination of furlough days would mean an extra $587, on average, in their paycheck during the fiscal year that starts July 1. The minimum would be an extra $398, and the maximum $913, according to school system calculations. “Step” increases for years of service and cost-of-living increases are not being proposed.
Donna Marie Aker, a math teacher at South Gwinnett High School and the president of the Gwinnett County Association of Educators, said teachers had been lobbying for an end to furlough days — and not just because they mean smaller paychecks.
They are an interruption, Aker said. “We need to have our planning days,” she said.
The association had argued for a 2 percent cost-of-living increase as well, Aker said. The environment that teachers are working in is stressful enough without them having to worry about their personal finances, she said.
“Keeping up with the cost of living would help all of us,” Aker said.
The district would spend $6.2 million to hire about 85 new teachers, based on projections that enrollment will grow by 1,690 students, or 1 percent, to 166,667 in the next school year.
Another $1.7 million would go to hire 18 additional school resource officers, one more for each of the district’s 18 school clusters. Currently, the district has one school resource officer, or school security officer, per cluster, as well as a few senior officers overseeing them.
Sloan Roach, school system spokeswoman, said additional resources officers were requested in prior years, before the heightened public attention to school safety after the Connecticut school massacre in December.
For the new fiscal year, the school system is likely to end an eight-year streak of no tax increases, Cost said.
An increase is expected in the tax that is imposed to cover the school system’s long-term debts, though the exact amount has not been determined. A small tax increase also could be required for the general fund budget if the forecasts for property tax collections come in lower than expected, Cost said.
Public hearings on the budget are slated for May, with final adoption of the budget scheduled for May 16.
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