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Board Approves 2014-15 Budget
The Board of Trustees approved a $71.8M operating budget for 2014-15 at its meeting on June 23. The vote followed at 5 p.m. public hearing on the budget.
The budget is a $2.6M increase over last year's budget and includes a 6 mill operating tax increase. The budget features includes funding for 23 new positions, including 16 teachers, to address the district's growing enrollment and commitment to providing a world-class education to all students.
This budget increases the operating tax rate, which falls only on businesses and on the owners of second homes. There will be no increase in taxes for debt service, which are paid by both homeowners and businesses. Under this tax increase, businesses assessed at a rate of 6 percent, which includes most retail businesses and the owners of second homes, would pay $36 more for each $100,000 in assessed property value. Manufacturing businesses, which are assessed at 10.5 percent, would pay $63 more for each $100,000 in assessed property value.
Funds will be borrowed later this year as part of the $67M bond referendum that was approved in March, which will result in a debt service tax being levied as part of the 2015-16 budget. Under South Carolina’s Act 388, which took effect in 2007, owner-occupied homes are exempt from property taxes that pay for school operations, although they continue to pay taxes for debt service.
Highlights of the 2014-15 operating budget are:
- Sixteen added teaching positions. The teaching jobs include six at Clover Middle, two at Oakridge Middle, five at the elementary school level for growth, and three in special education.
- Two new technical staff positions due to data processing and other technical needs and three technology coaches.
- Two teaching assistant positions for chorus and band
- $1.4 million for the second year of a three-year lease contract with Apple for its Connected Classroom project, which aims to place an iPad or MacBook Air in the hands of every student in the fall.
- A step increase for eligible teachers, which averages 2 percent, and retirement and insurance benefit increases required by the state, which total $1.3 million more.
- An increase of $300,000 for utilities.
- A $250,000 increase in the budget for substitute teachers, to $1.25 million.