CCSD charts path forward without COVID-19 ESSER funds in Fiscal Year 25 budget – ABC NEWS 4

March 19, 2024

Charleston County School District is trying to come up with tens of millions of dollars. The biggest challenge regarding the Fiscal Year 2025 budget is sunsetting ESSER funds COVID-19 funds. (WCIV)

Charleston, S.C. (WCIV)

The Charleston County School District is trying to come up with tens of millions of dollars.

The biggest challenge regarding the Fiscal Year 2025 budget is sunsetting ESSER funds COVID-19 funds.

All of which will be used by September.

The school district has $22 million of ESSER funds left.

Charleston%20County%20School%20District%20is%20trying%20to%20come%20up%20with%20tens%20of%20millions%20of%20dollars.%20The%20biggest%20challenge%20regarding%20the%20Fiscal%20Year%202025%20budget%20is%20sunsetting%20ESSER%20funds%20%E2%80%93%20COVID-19%20funds.%20(WCIV)

Now, the district is trying to come up with $90 million to sustain the programs and positions that are ESSER-funded.

Daron Lee Calhoun II said the district is working hard with their new chief financial officer to tighten up their expenditures and come up with the money.

Calhoun said he supports the weighted student-based funding model that was presented at the most recent budget workshop.

Superintendent Anita Huggins says this would allow the district to maintain effective programs and positions currently funded by ESSER.

Schools are funded based on enrollment but the new model would allow the district to follow a different ratio.

Students in poverty, those receiving special education services, and multilingual learners would be weighted higher and increase the allocation of funds to their schools.

With this model, we can sustain a lot of those programs and a lot of the full-time employees under the general operating fund. How do we do it over the next three or five years? Can we do it over the next three to five years? If we can't, then how do we scale back on the model a little bit? Calhoun said. How do we sustain it? That's where my biggest question would come from.

Another question he has: how would this work with school voucher programs the state is potentially expanding?

This model is flatly a racist model. The voucher systems came about in 1964 because of school integration, Calhoun said.

The state program is essentially public dollars going to parents, allowing them to choose their students school.

As long as you keep pulling money out of the schools, were already strained trying to balance this billion-dollar budget that we have," Calhoun said. "That money coming out of our schools is not going to help us at all. We need to keep our public funds and our taxpayer funds within the public schools."

Calhoun says they won't know how this will affect the suggested model or CCSDs budget until they know how many students are participating in the voucher program.

If 200 students take that $6,000, that's a lot of money coming out of our schools," Calhoun said. "That can go to teacher increases. That can go to projects that were funded by ESSER. Every little bit of money coming out of our district takes away something else."

While the district is busy building its budget, it is simultaneously having to watch the states budget

Calhoun hopes the state passes its budget by April so they can build those numbers into their plan.

It will truly affect everything we're doing," He said. "We need those numbers soon."

The House passed the budget last week and now heads to the Senate.

Privacy Overview

Strictly Necessary Cookies