The Athens City Schools’ Board of Education unanimously voted to pass an updated budget for the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year during its final budget hearing on Thursday, Aug. 22.
After two public budget hearings on Thursday and Tuesday, Aug. 20, at the city schools’ office, the school board agreed to a new budget and passed the 2025-2029 Capital Plan, which totaled $127 million.
“We have to put everything on the capital plan, and we can move it around as needed,” Serena Owsley, chief school financial officer and assistant superintendent, told The News Courier. “You put all the wants, and most of them are needs, on the capital plan. That’s over five years as well.”
The plan, which will now be sent to the State’s Education Department after approval, accounted for the future growth of the city schools population and focused heavily on the eventual need for better facilities to handle that growth.
The total enrollment for all city schools from the 2024 school year to the 2025 school year has seen a %7.13 increase — 345 new students, not including preschool — according to documents obtained by The News Courier for the city school system.
“We are already trying to catch our old buildings up with this influx of growth,” Owsley said. “We’ve got two brand new buildings, and we are working on a third one. We have had 16 projects in total already.”
Facilities Manager Lee Edminson detailed the different projects that were outlined in the new capital plan during the final budget hearing. Seven projects on the plan are currently in construction, totaling $43 million.
The plan will need to be approved by the State Finance Director and State Superintendent Eric Mackey at the state level before it is officially set into order. The budget can be adjusted throughout the year.
“It’s required by the state that we hold two budget hearings, and the capital plan is for everything that we might need to do over the next five years,” Beth Patton, city school’s superintendent, told The News Courier. “Everything on there is a need, some are more critical than the others, but as we are growing we will continue to have to deal with these issues. A lot of them are not glamorous, like a new school, a lot of it is new HVACs and roofs which add up over time.”