THOMASVILLE — Thomasville City Schools will start the 2022-23 school year with a general fund budget of $28.35 million.

School board officials have approved the budget, which calls for $18 million in spending in instructional services.

“Instructional is our primary function,” city schools chief financial officer Kimberly NeSmith said at a school board budget hearing. 

The $18 million, NeSmith said.covers salaries and benefits for our employees. 

For its general fund revenues, the city schools will take in $12.8 million from local property taxes and about $15.2 million from state sources. 

“With us being a city system, we do have a strong local tax base,” NeSmith said. 

State money is based on the FTE, or full-time equivalency, count, a survey of the number of students in the system. It’s taken twice a year. 

NeSmith said the state quality basic education funding is about the same as last year’s, and the state has restored its austerity cuts.

The school system also is bolstering the pay for its paraprofessionals. School board members approved a new salary schedule and the one for parapros calls for their pay to range from $12.24 an hour to $17.21 an hour for those who have at least 21 years of experience. 

“That is very important with inflation. We feel like we need to provide them a livable wage for the work they do for us,” NeSmith said. 

The higher salaries for the parapros results in a $514,000 increase in the city schools system’s salaries and benefits. 

Also increased were the wages for the school nutrition staff and the wages for the school system’s janitorial service. That added up to a $198,000 increase in wages.

Certified staff received a $2,000 increase, in line with the governor;’s budget, and there was a $2,500 bonus to personnel paid in May.

For its other major expense categories, the school system will spend $2.6 million on maintenance and operation, $2.3 million on school administration, and $1.6 million on pupil services. The system also will spend $800,000 on improvement of instruction. 

The system will have one fewer assistant principal at Thomasville High School and two or three fewer elementary school teachers. It is adding a middle grades science teacher, a district mentor teacher, four new special education teachers, one English speakers of another language teacher, giving the system two full-time ESOL teachers, and a computer science teacher at the high school, which is a new requirement from the state.

There also will be three multi-tiered system of support, or MTSS, teachers to help at-risk students. 

The system has been allocated up to $88,000 each year for the next two years for a school bus. A fully equipped bus runs about $120,000. The school system has until 2025 to spend those funds and projects to buy one bus in the coming fiscal year and another in fiscal year 2024. 

Along with the general fund, special fund, school nutrition fund, capital projects and debt service, the school system’s total budget is $53.2 million.