The Vicksburg Warren School District voted to make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors for a 4 percent ad volorem increase.

Superintendent Chad Shealy said the increase is essentially a cost of living adjustment.

“We can go into our budget and see what we need and make those requests to the Board of Supervisors, and the Board of Supervisors are the ones that adjust,” he said. “They can shift things around or decide to postpone other projects to fund us.”

Shealy said the district does not have the authority to raise taxes.

“To put it in context, a 4 percent ad volorem increase is allowable for the school districts, and most school districts across the state do that almost every year.”

The reason it was imperative for the district to ask for the increase these two years is partially because before this it had been about 20 years since the district asked for one and partially because of two financial issues, Shealy said.

“From back when we built the two mega schools, we’re still paying almost $1 million a year out of our general fund because we didn’t go to the tax base for that,” he said. “As a district they decided we were going to build those buildings out of our pocket instead of those being millage increases or bond issues to acquire those additional funds. We’ve been eating it for 15 years.”

In addition to the $3.8 million the school district was underfunded by from the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the district is facing the second year of a mandatory pay raise, Shealy said.

“The 4 percent ad volorem request won’t cover the mandatory raise adjustments,” he said. “We need it to tread water on the things we’re required to do based on the fact we weren’t given sufficient funding from the legislature.”

Shealy said the district is doing its best not to deplete the reserves and to keep a balanced budget while being faithful with the money it already has.

“The only option we have without the ad volorem request is to cut programs, and we would have to look into jobs because the majority of our money goes into staff,” he said. “It’s not for frills.”

Shealy said the district’s budget is extremely lean and scores well on the state report card.

“They had us very low on administrative costs and very high on teacher supplements for student use and high on teacher expenditures in the classroom, and they had us dead last in the state for additional expenditures,” he said. “We were rated 151st. If it wasn’t personnel in the classroom or supplies given to the kids in the class or administrative costs, we really didn’t spend any money.”

Shealy said the district is trying to be as frugal as possible while still moving the district forward.

“If all we do is say, ‘Well, we’re not going to spend money’ the kids suffer from that,” he said. “They don’t get programs and some of these things we’re trying to do.”

Shealy said fortunately the majority of advancements being done in Vicksburg are being funded by outside sources.

“We’ve gone out and cultivated relationships and gotten grants and had conversations with partners to invest in us,” he said. “A lot of the changes you’re seeing, we found unique ways to fund those so that it hasn’t impacted us financially, but we’re seeing the benefits.”

Shealy explained when a school board needs money, there are three options other than the 4 percent ad volorem request, including shortfalls, millage increases or bond issuances.

“The school district has done a real good job of not going out there and just trying to grab everything we can get and just trying to be faithful with what we’ve got,” he said. “The problem is we’ve gotten to the point that we were just expending so much 16th Section interest money that it was going to be unfeasible for us to continue doing that.”

Shealy said the Board of Supervisors have been incredibly supportive of the school district.

“Those guys have really worked hard to make it happen for us,” he said.