Hamilton Southeastern Schools officials are predicting at least a few years of budget deficits as the district faces increasing costs and decreasing enrollment.
Chief Financial Officer Tim Brown gave a budget presentation to the HSE Board of Trustees Sept. 25 outlining the district’s finances and introducing the proposed 2025 budget, which totals about $326 million — up from this year’s approximately $300 million.
Brown said a significant portion of the district’s budget comes from per-student funding provided by the state. He said attendance at HSE Schools peaked in the 2019-20 school year at 21,808 students, with those numbers dropping steadily each year since. This year’s enrollment is 20,913, and the district projects 2025’s average daily membership, or ADM, will be 20,683.
A large part of that drop is in the younger grades, particularly kindergarten.
“We’ve got a student body of almost 1,800 students that are seniors and just over 1,100 students that are kindergartners,” Brown said. “It certainly doesn’t always work out smooth math there, but you can see the difference — over 600 students. If nothing else changes, we’re trending to lose another 600 students next year, just by that count alone.”
Board Member Suzanne Thomas pointed out that some older grades show an increase year-over-year, which indicates people with older children are moving into the district, rather than young families who can’t afford Hamilton County home prices.
Brown agreed, but noted that from the 2019-20 peak, the district is down 1,125 students, which equates to $7.5 million in today’s dollars from state ADM funding alone.
The district also is funded through property taxes and an operating referendum approved by voters in November, also based on property values. Brown said increasing assessed values throughout the district didn’t offset increased costs and decreased ADM funding.
A large part of the district’s costs are salaries, with teachers making up the largest group of employees. Last November, the school board approved a new contract with the Hamilton Southeastern Education Association that raised base pay for all teachers and provided additional compensation for those who earned master’s degrees.
Brown said salaries across the district increased by about $11 million in 2024, with teacher salaries making up the bulk of that increase. He said that for 2025, without factoring in any salary increases for any positions in the district, the proposed budget will need more than $5 million from reserves to cover costs.
Brown said that isn’t a sustainable solution. He recommended the district create a budget study committee to look at where cuts can be made to balance the budget moving forward. However, he said, it likely will take multiple years to resolve the deficit.
The district has been exploring the idea of opening a charter school that focuses on work-readiness programs. Board members Tiffany Pascoe and Ben Orr asked about the budget implications of opening a charter school — noting that ADM funds would move with any student attending that school.
Superintendent Patrick Mapes said the charter school, if it moves forward, would open in 2026, so it wouldn’t affect the upcoming budget. The charter school proposal initially called for an opening date of fall 2025.
Abby Taylor is president of HSEA, the union representing teachers. She said Brown’s budget presentation is clear evidence that a charter school is not what’s best for the community.
“If we are struggling to pay teachers what they are worth, how can we expect to do that with less money when a charter school would be able to dip into our budget?” she said. “HSE students and teachers should come first, always.”
The district will be negotiating a new teacher contract this year. Taylor said the union will continue to fight for fair compensation for teachers.
“We believe that in order to continue to be among the top districts in the state, we must pay our teachers what they’re worth,” she said.
The next HSE Board of Trustees meeting is 6 p.m. Oct. 9 at the district’s central office , 13485 Cumberland Rd. Meetings are livestreamed on the board’s website, hseschools.org/board/board-of-school-trustees.
