5 Year Budget Analysis
Fort Mill School District—New Budget Items, FY2022-23 to FY2026-27
Five-year summary of General Fund items added each year — Finance Office|
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What stays constant, year after year
- Personnel is 90-93% of new spending every year. Salary steps, COLA increases, retirement (SC Retirement System) contributions, and payroll fringe (FICA, health insurance) are the dominant, largely contractual cost driver — not discretionary new programs. Teacher recruitment and retention is given priority annually with the goal to remain competitive with teacher pay and maintain reasonable class sizes across all schools.
- Enrollment growth adds staff every year. New classroom teachers, special education teachers, and special education assistants are added annually in direct proportion to student count growth. Additionally, positions related to increased student and teacher support such as mental health counselors, guidance counselors, school psychologists, and instructional coaches are added in years when the need is identified and can be funded.
- Federal grant expirations shift costs to the General Fund. ESSER I/II/III, Title I, At-Risk, and EEDA-funded positions have moved onto local funding as temporary federal COVID-relief dollars ran out (concentrated in FY22-23 through FY24-25). Federal funds tend to remain at a constant level or decline when position costs are increasing.
- Fixed operating costs climb steadily. Utilities, cleaning, insurance, and maintenance repairs appear as new-item lines every single year, reflecting inflation and an expanding facility footprint.
- New schools are a two-year, back-to-back capital event. Flint Hill Elementary opened in FY2025-26 ($3.38M) and Flint Hill Middle opened in FY2026-27 ($5.07M) — together the largest capital driver in this five-year window.
- Local property tax millage is the swing funding source. As state/federal shares fluctuate and decline, the District has been forced to request new local tax mills in nearly every year; with the passage of S.C. Act 388, the maximum allowed local funding millage calculation is split into a CPI-indexed portion and a growth-indexed portion. It is important to note that homeowners in S.C. do not pay school operational millage on their primary home.
Key Talking Points
- About 90 cents of every new budget dollar is compensation — cutting the budget without touching staffing/pay has very limited room.
- Growth and inflation, not new initiatives, explain most year-over-year increases in this five-year window.
- New millage requests map directly to these new-item lists; the two new schools (FY25-26 and FY26-27) are the largest one-time drivers, not recurring cost growth.
- The Act 388 CPI/growth index cap limits how much millage can rise without a vote or override — a useful frame when explaining funding constraints.
Revenue Side: Where the Money Comes From
Five-year revenue trends behind the spending above, FY2022-23 to FY2026-27
- The District is leaning more on local property taxes every year. Local taxes have grown from 51.5% of total revenue (FY22-23) to 59.4% (FY26-27), while the state's share has fallen from 43.9% to 35.5% over the same period. In FY2026-27, state education funding actually declined in dollar terms (-$590,391) for the first time in this window.
- Rising property values, not just tax rate hikes, are funding growth. Taxable assessed value has grown from $327M (2015) to $810M (2025) — up 148% in a decade. This 'local revenue growth' (higher values at the same rate) is now funding a growing share of new spending without requiring a millage increase, most visibly in the FY2026-27 budget.
- Even with base growth, the District has also raised the tax rate itself. District operating millage has climbed from 203.4 mills (2021) to 317.1 mills (2027) — a 56% increase — the countywide millage (30 mills) stays consistent by state law. FY2023-24's unusually large millage jump (30 mills, appearing as 34 on the books) reflects South Carolina's Act 388 'millage lookback' rule, which lets a District recapture unused millage capacity from the prior three years — 4.0 unused mills from 2022-23 were rolled into that year's increase.
Act 388 millage caps (why the District can’t just raise rates freely)
- Annual millage increases are capped at CPI + population growth — 7.40% (21.2 mills) for FY25-26, and 6.44% (19.7 mills) for FY26-27 — without a public vote or an override.
- Districts can 'look back' and recapture unused millage capacity from the prior three years — this is why some years show larger-than-expected increases.
- Practical taxpayer impact: FY2025-26's 20.2-mill increase cost about $243/year on a $200,000 property; FY2026-27's smaller 10.5-mill increase cost about $126/year on the same property.
- Despite rising local taxes, Fort Mill still spends less per pupil than its neighbors. At $12,128 per pupil (FY24, latest comparative data available), Fort Mill spends less than Clover ($14,666), York ($15,411), Rock Hill ($15,965), and the state average ($14,827) — a useful counter to the narrative that rising budgets mean overspending relative to peers.
- The district's own budgeted per-pupil amount has grown 37.7% in five years. Budgeted spending per student (total General Fund budget divided by projected enrollment) rose from $10,722 in FY22-23 to $14,771 in FY26-27, even as enrollment itself grew more slowly (17,995 to 18,442 ADM, +2.5%) — meaning most of the per-pupil increase is cost growth (compensation, benefits, operations), not just serving more students.
Where per-pupil dollars actually go (FY23-24, 20-DistrictSC comparison)
Sourced from the district's FY2026-27 budget presentation, using the SC Revenue & Fiscal Affairs Office comparative dataset of 20 similarly sized SC districts.Spending Per Pupil by Category
- $13,470 total spend per pupil breaks down into six categories: Instruction $7,830 (58.1%), Operations $2,783 (20.7%), Instructional Support $1,853 (13.8%), School Management $788 (5.7%), Programs Management $182 (1.2%), and District Management $74 (0.5%).
- 71.9% of every per-pupil dollar goes to Instruction and Instructional Support combined — the 4th-highest share among the 20 comparison districts, behind Anderson District#1 (73%), Aiken County (72.6%), and Beaufort County (72.6%).
- District-level central office spending is among the leanest in the state: $74 per pupil, 2nd-lowest of the 20 districts (only Berkeley County is lower, at $67) — and far below districts like York ($191), Richland #1 ($303), or Fairfield County ($519).
- Total leadership spending (school + program + District management) is $1,004 per pupil, low-to-mid range overall - and 76.5% of that is spent at the school level (principals/assistant principals), not the district office, reinforcing a decentralized, classroom-facing structure.
- Context on growth: FMSD had the 3rd-highest population growth rate (5.26%) among the 20 comparison districts in FY23-24 — behind only Spartanburg District#5 (7.97%) and Horry County (6.01%) — yet its total per-pupil spend of $13,470 remained lower than more than half the districts in the dataset.
- Fort Mill ranks 13th of 20 in total per-pupil spending ($13,470) - below the midpoint of the comparison group, and well below the highest spenders (Fairfield County $23,919; Richland #1 $20,260; Charleston County $17,930).
- Across all 20 districts, the split between Instruction, Instructional Support, Operations, and Leadership varies widely - Fort Mill's 58.1% Instruction / 13.8% Instructional Support / 20.7% Operations / 7.5% Leadership mix sits toward the higher-instruction end of the range, alongside districts like Clover (57.5%) and York (54.9%), and above lower-instruction districts like Anderson District#5 (48.9%) and Rock Hill #3 (48.4%).
- Among the five districts that spend the largest share on Instruction and Instructional Support, Fort Mill's combined $9,683 per pupil ($7,830 Instruction + $1,853 Instructional Support) is the 2nd highest of the five — behind only Beaufort County ($12,601), and ahead of Spartanburg District#5 ($9,553), Aiken County ($9,534), and Anderson District#1 ($8,611).
Key Talking Points - Overall
- The state is funding a shrinking share of a growing budget — local taxpayers are increasingly the marginal funder of new spending, not a one-time or discretionary choice.
- Enrollment growth (18,442 students projected for FY26-27, up from 17,995 in FY22-23) is the constant driver on the revenue side too — the State's per-pupil formula and local tax base both scale with growth, but not always at the same pace as costs.
- A growing tax base (rising assessed values) is doing more of the work than new millage in recent years — that's a fundamentally different story than 'the School Board keeps raising your tax rate.'
- Yes, Per-pupil budgeted spending is climbing faster than enrollment — However, the growth story is increasingly about the needs per student reflected in the cost-per-student, not just more students.
- The category breakdown shows the money is going where the School Board says it is: 72% to Instruction/Instructional Support, and one of the leanest district-office overheads in the state (0.5% of per-pupil spend).
- Millage decisions are legally capped by Act 388 (CPI + growth), with a three-year lookback provision — the School Board has less discretion here than it may appear.