The Lexington County School District 1 school board continues to wrestle with the need to increase taxes.

At its regular June 13 meeting, the board voted to approve a budget that included a tax increase for district residents that will lead to a $102 increase in houses valued over $100,000 and a $31 increase in cars valued over $30,000.

According to Jennifer Miller, chief financial officer for the district, the tax increase will not impact a homeowner’s primary residence, but will be applied to businesses, vehicles and boats.

The increase would bring in nearly $5.8 million for the district.

This will be the first tax increase for the district since 2019.

The budget totals more than $364 million, up from about $326 million last year.

During the meeting, Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait shared that there are three big unknowns with the budget, including how much money the district will get from the state, where the district’s year-end fund balance from the previous fiscal year will land, and the district’s enrollment numbers for the upcoming year.

These unknowns are why Postlewait said she recommends the board to amend the budget at its August meeting, as there is a chance the district will not need the full tax increase.

“We fully expect for that number to be somewhat less in August,” the superintendent said. “We would never recommend a number that you would have to move up on.”

“We don't want to raise taxes before we have to,” she added.

Roof reiterated this position.

“Certainly, no one wants to have to raise taxes, it's a new expense or an additional expense. It is something that the board wrestled with greatly because they do recognize that it does impact small businesses,” she said. “We are trying to send a strong message to encourage our community, our employees, our families to support small businesses in the area, as a way to try to offset the tax increase.”

Roof added that the district's schools are what keeps the community growing, developing and moving forward and to have schools that attract growth, economic stability and expansion, investments need to be made.

Miller said the need to do this now comes from what the district is calling “a perfect storm.” She explained that pressures exerted by the state’s new school funding formula coupled with the end of pandemic-era funding and expenses incurred during the pandemic is forcing the tax increase.

Some of the services the district was able to add with pandemic funding are ones it wants to keep, now having to do so out of its general fund.

“That's something we've never faced before,” Miller said. “And then also with the new revenue formula, it is unfortunately having a negative impact on Lexington 1, and the state is putting us in a situation where we need to help fund our school operating budget locally.”

Some residents expressed concern about the tax increase. 

“This amount is mainly going to affect the business owners in the area,” said Nicholas Pizzutti, who ran for a seat on the board last fall. “Small businesses are the backbone of our community and of the economy. And we know that if they have to take this increase, it's just gonna be passed down to the public.”

The district said it has taken other measures in response to the new revenue formula by strategically repurposing jobs and programs within the district. The district repurposed more than $3 million by doing this.

Some jobs that were repurposed include elementary librarian assistants, high school librarian assistants, help desk coordinators, central service administration, digital learning coaches and elementary interventionists.

Miller explained that these changes were also in response to new state requirements for educators to have 30 minutes of unencumbered time during the school day, adding that no employee lost their job or experienced a pay decrease as a result.

The district also removed three programs – the computer science immersion program, a staff position associated with the alcohol and drug abuse authority LRADAC, and the Lexington 1 Online Learning Academy.

“Now there are so many options for students who want to pursue online learning that we felt like those programs provided probably better services than what we could offer,” Roof said. “We are limited in what we can offer and so it felt like we can better serve our students, reallocating those positions.”