The Hamilton County School Board moved the needle Thursday night on a long-discussed $705 million fiscal budget.¶
Since October 2025, the board has gone back and forth on budget details for the next school year. At Thursday’s meeting, members unanimously settled on a budget that includes raises for employees and six- and seven-figure funding allocations for athletics, fine arts, band, and maintenance.¶
Board Discussion
The budget includes $14 million to create a new compensation model after members insisted it was their top priority, as the 2025-2026 budget did not include any raises. Staff such as teachers, librarians, and counselors will receive a 3.5 percent raise. General staff, such as administrators and assistants, will receive a 2.25 percent raise. The district will reduce its central office budget by 5 percent and reduce its school-based staff budget by 2 percent.¶
With $2 million left over, the board decided to allocate $1.1 million to the athletics department to improve coaching stipends and address other needs. Fine arts and band received $500,000, and the maintenance department received $400,000. These allocations represent a 25 percent budget increase for athletics and an 80 percent budget increase for fine arts and band.¶
Before the vote, District 6 board member Ben Connor raised concerns over whether the budget reflected what the board’s constituents want.¶
“In our finance meeting, I specifically brought up the fact that this is the inverse of what the community survey results said,” Connor said. “Community survey results (prioritized) a staffing model, which 14 and a half million is going to the staffing model, but the next thing up was facilities and maintenance, then technology, then athletics. We've inverted this, and we talked about how we were going to discuss it further, but we never did.”¶
District 5 board member Karitsa Jones echoed Connor’s concerns, saying she would like for the board as a whole to get together and talk to the Hamilton County Commission about the proposed budget.¶
“I do think (Dr. Justin Robinson), and every other previous superintendent does a great job with that, but Justin is hired by us,” Jones said. “That’s his job, but he's not elected, and I think the two elected bodies should have that type of conversation.”¶
District 1 board member Steve Slater, who serves as the chairman of the Hamilton County Athletics Committee, pushed back, saying that coaching stipends have not been touched in 29 years.¶
“If this passes, athletics would still only be (0.7 percent) of the budget,” Slater said. “Athletics has always taken a back seat to pretty much everything.”¶
Next Steps
The school board will now submit the budget to the Hamilton County Commission for approval.¶
The commissioner’s next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 27.¶
