The Henry County Board of Education has scheduled Aug. 24 as the day to consider, for final approval, its 2020-2021 budget.

  That is three months later than usual. After the Georgia General Assembly suspended its 2020 session due to the COVID-19 shutdown, the district had to wait until the legislature reconvened and approved the state budget, since state funding accounts for about 60 percent of the local district’s budget. The school board passed several monthly spending resolutions as allowed by law to fill the gap.

  The tentative budget of $373,452,822 was adopted at the board’s Aug. 10 regular business meeting, after the first required budget hearing was convened. This budget total is nine percent lower than last year’s $407 million, the largest amount ever for the district.

  Chief financial officer Christy Willis pointed out that local tax revenue increased more than $8 million over last year. State revenue was another story. It fell about $41.5 million, from $242.5 million to just over $201 million.

  Here are some other highlights noted during budget hearing:

  There are no furloughs planned for the 2020-2021 school year. Salary schedules will be honored and steps will be effective when the final budget is adopted.

  Prior to the pandemic, feedback from community conversations led to planning for additional school-level personnel investments for intervention services, fine arts and athletics in the 2020-2021 school year. The tentative budget honors those commitments.

  School budgets have been maintained, including funding for athletic and band transportation. The district budgets are being reduced by five percent.

  Fewer than one percent of school positions are on hold while waiting for actual enrollment determinations, while close to two and a half percent of district positions are frozen.

  Some prior planning from a year ago, as well as decisiveness in response to COVID-19, has put the district in a slightly better financial position than it could have been, according to Willis. The 2019-2020 budget added $2.5 million to the reserve fund, and prior to the pandemic the district was scheduled to be one percent over budgeted revenues and one percent under budgeted expenditures for the year, which would have added another $8 million to reserves. Also, the board’s decision to implement an essential spending resolution in April afforded $2.5 million in savings.

  About $4 million in the new budget is coming from the federal level by way of the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security). Board member Annette Edwards asked where the budget would be without CARES Act funding, and Willis replied that the money would probably have had to come from reserves or absorbed via 3.5 furlough days.