Gadsden County School Board looks to pull out of financial “nosedive”

Fabrizio Gowdy Gadsden County News Service

The Gadsden County School District is desperate to tighten its belt amid ongoing fiscal challenges.

The district is implementing cost-saving measures including freezing non-grant-funded hiring, halting non-essential travel and auctioning off surplus assets.

In a lengthy presentation during the school board’s April 14 special meeting, Finance Director Marleni Bruner used a grim analogy to describe the district’s current financial situation.

“We are on a plane, we’re in a nosedive, we’re probably going to hit the ground, we’re gonna have some bumps, but I think we’ll be able to smooth it out—right now [we’re] hitting those bumps and trying to get through those bumps,” Bruner said.

Bruner is optimistic that by being transparent and working with Florida’s Auditor General and Department of Education, the district can improve its financial outlook.

According to Bruner, the district is being hurt financially by school choice policies adopted by the state in recent years, such as vouchers that allow students to use public funds to attend private schools.

For the current school year, 914 Gadsden County students are using Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, which means the district is missing out on a collective $6.37 million in state funding. Without the program, GCSD would get $46 million from the state, but it currently receives less than $40 million.

“For a district our size, that’s major money,” Superintendent Elijah Key told board members.

The district is determined not to fall below 3% fund balance before the end of the current fiscal year on June 30—if that happens, Key would be required to notify the commissioner of education and state intervention could ensue.

Next fiscal year, the district plans to tie staffing and spending directly to verified enrollment counts, cap each department’s general‑fund spending to the percentage of state funding actually received, and enforce a strict, schedule‑driven budgeting process that prevents departments from exceeding their allocated resources. “Once they are given their budget, the departments will have to live within those means because there will be no general fund to fill the gaps,” Bruner said.

The consolidation of four schools into one K-8 school in Quincy is also expected to bring some relief.

Until then, Bruner urged everyone in the district to pull together to be more efficient. She encouraged schools to check if any other schools have surplus supplies before placing new orders when materials run out, claiming those are the kinds of cost-saving measures that are necessary at the moment.

Key said he met with superintendents from across Florida at a recent conference in Orlando, and other districts around the state are facing similar challenges. He said 85% of the district’s budget is spent on employee salaries and other personnel costs.

Reacting to the news, Board Chair Leroy McMillan offered a sharp criticism of the state’s education policies.

“The state is not helping us in any way, shape, or form with all these scholarships—it appears that they want to shut us down, and they’re doing a pretty good job of it,” said McMillan.

McMillan said he was angered that parents could divert thousands in state funding from the district, but then send their students back to district schools if homeschooling proved too tedious.

Key echoed that criticism and frustration.

“We have to be honest about what’s going on—private schools and everybody else is benefiting off of this and who’s suffering? Public school,” said Key.

Teacher pay boost

The board also unanimously approved a $504 salary increase for teachers. The increase cost a total of $162,000, mostly covered by state Teacher Salary Increase Allocation funds. An estimated $29,000 from the district’s general fund was used to give an equal raise to teachers with less than two years of experience, who were ineligible for the TSIA funds.

Gadsden County Classroom Teachers AssociationPresident Judith Mandela told The Gadsden County Times that teachers understand the financial challenges facing every district and are grateful for the increase, but were hoping the amount could have been more, even if it was a non-recurring bonus. “In the last two to three years, the district contribution is almost nonexistent,” Mandela said, pointing out that $504 annually comes out to less than $40 per paycheck after taxes. “The district must include increases for salaries in their budget, not wait and see what is leftover.”

In response, Key told The Gadsden County Time s he believes teachers are “quite satisfied” with the efforts the district has made to increase pay in the past six years.

“We have moved from $38,115 to $48,777.40, which happens to be one of the largest salary increases in the state of Florida,” said Key. “The district works diligently to increase the salaries of our educators, even making difficult decisions that have directly impacted the district’s overall fund balance in order to prioritize these increases.”

Meanwhile, during the board’s meeting, McMillan criticized the teacher’s association.

“The union needs to get together and look out for all the teachers, not just a handful of the teachers, and I don’t apologize for saying that,” said McMillan. “There are very few teachers involved in this union making this decision for all the teachers.”

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Gadsden County School Board looks to pull out of financial “nosedive”

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Gadsden County secures $4.4 million grant for new EMS facility

Greensboro Elementary School gym teacher arrested after physical altercation with 9-year-old student

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