Macon school board approves final budget with bigger class sizes, no staff raises

The Bibb County Board of Education wrapped up its budget season Thursday after holding a final public hearing and approving the fiscal year 2027 budget, which will not include a salary step increase for all staff.

Bibb County Schools’ FY27 budget passed 6-2, with board members Henry Ficklin and Sundra Woodford opposing it. The budget includes a reduction of 77 instructional K-12 positions and a $1.5 million reduction in operational spending, according to a district memorandum.

For its general fund balance, which covers most day-to-day operations, the district projects $287.4 million in revenues and $302.4 million in expenditures and transfers out, an operating deficit of nearly $15 million.

This is lower than the district’s initial projected $23 million deficit announced earlier this year, but Ficklin called for deeper cuts, the restoration of teacher step increases and reconsideration of larger class sizes — priorities he has consistently advocated for throughout the budget cycle.

At Thursday’s called meeting, Ficklin made a motion to amend the budget and direct district officials to identify an additional $2 million in cost savings.

Superintendent Dan Sims said the district would need time to identify additional cost savings and expressed concern about meeting the June 30 budget deadline. He said staff would have only five days to find the savings and warned that if the district missed the deadline, it would have to operate under a spending resolution.

“I don’t think that the budget should be balanced on the backs of the classroom teachers in any way,” Ficklin said in response. “They can reduce it somewhere else with the additional money that we’re going to get.”

Ficklin’s motion failed.

On the cost side, the district’s CFO Eric Bush also highlighted rising expenses tied to state mandates, including an increase in employer health insurance costs and from higher teacher retirement rates.

Key highlights of the FY 2027 Budget are listed below, per the district:

• Maintain all staff salary at current salary step
• Addition of 21 state mandated literacy coaches for grades K-3
• Increase in state health cost of $600 per member and TRS expense of 1.87%
• Reduction of 77 instructional positions K-12
• Reduction in operational expenditures of $1.5 million
• Increase in state equalization grant of $10.1 million

This story will be updated.

Preliminary millage rate talk, no say yet on school closures

Bush also presented to the board on Thursday the preliminary tax digest that district officials received on June 12.

He walked the board through scenarios for the district’s millage rate, noting that keeping the current rate could narrow the projected deficit from about $14.9 million to $5.8 million, an increase of roughly $9.1 million in revenue compared with a no-change scenario.

The budget did not include a millage rate increase. The district said proposed millage rate options will be presented in the future.

In early June, the board decided to study the possible consolidation or closure of two elementary schools, continuing a 2025 review of closures that ended without a decision.

Earlier this year, district officials proposed a rezoning scenario that would turn L.H. Williams Elementary School into an early learning center to help curb declining student enrollment.

During the public hearing, one speaker urged the board to increase the millage rate if necessary to “really equip education first in this community.” He also cautioned the board about the potential “devastating effect” of closing L.H. Williams, a school that he said serves historic contribution to the area.

The district did not vote on closing a school.

This story was originally published June 25, 2026 at 6:05 PM.