In a full breakdown of the Trigg County Schools upcoming budget Thursday night, Chief Financial Officer Holly Greene noted several appropriations will be made during the 2024-25 academic year — and beyond.
Among them: the increase of actual salaries, the middle school’s desire for a new awning, a singular bus purchase while officials await other orders to arrive, and additional adjusted expenses to be directed toward special education.
She said Fund 1, or the “General Fund,” has a carry forward of more than $6.4 million — a strong reserve if needed — and that full budget appropriations this next fiscal calendar could top $21 million.
SEEK funding, she added, goes into the district’s Fund 1, and is provided by the state through a complex formula that even now still flummoxes most state officials. It’s adjusted per pupil and partially relies not only on average daily attendance, but whether or not a district levies specific tax rates.
Thankfully for Trigg County, legislators have improved the base value from $4,000 per student in 2021-22, to $4,326 in 2024-25, and Greene said some earlier miscalculations and estimates for the district will come back more positively.
In other board news:
— Laura James, director of student services and personnel, said average daily attendance is currently above 96% for the district: highest it has been since pre-COVID 19. Furthermore, of 112 recent behavior events on campus, several were for tobacco and vape use. She said enforced consequences have slowed this pervasiveness, mostly through in-school suspension.
She and Superintendent Rex Booth, however, raved about attendance.
— Trigg County Primary School Principal Lindsey Kinslow delivered a comprehensive report of her slice of the campus, noting students this year were “far more prepared” to use a Chrome Book than in recent years. As such, she said early Brigance and STAR testing with math and reading assessments have gone well, and teacher attendance has been superb.
— Board members also unanimously approved the beginning of two projects: a submission of a BG-1 application for a new Trigg County Middle School entrance and awning drafted by architects at Sherman Carter Barnhart, not to exceed $375,000, and the purchase of two new metal signs for the Trigg County High School Gymnasium.
— Mandy Bird, Trigg County’s director of special education, said program numbers to begin the 2024-25 academic year have been “as expected,” with 102 targeted in primary, 104 targeted in intermediate, 52 in the middle school and 63 in the high school. Several of which, she added, are for speech purposes only.
The district currently has 20 total special education teachers and 15 instructional assistants, while 83 students are enrolled at preschool.
She also said a program bus, with upgrades, is currently in the middle of a tear-down and remodel. It will be called “Wildcats On Wheels,” and was made possible through grant funding.
