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Editorial: School budgets feel the squeeze
Local districts struggle to hold the line on tax rates while personnel costs keep rising
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Kiersten Kliesrath, 9, Kade Hawthorne, 9, Addison Sheppard, 8, and Aliyah Peck, 9, work on their laptops earlier this month in Courtney Chambers’ third-grade class at Riverbend Elementary School in Gainesville. - photo by Erin O. Smith
Hall County taxpayers got good news from their school district this week, but it comes with a big asterisk moving forward: Don’t count on your taxes staying low if things don’t change. Hall schools’ next fiscal year general fund budget of $263 million includes no tax hikes for county residents, and a small drop in the millage rate. But the increased cost for teachers and other personnel taking greater share of school budgets each year makes that tax rate “unsustainable” in the future, according to Superintendent Will Schofield.