Brian Shane

Staff Writer

An educational budget surplus from the prior fiscal year will fund after-school programs at some north-end public schools for the current school year.

Starting Nov. 1, Worcester County schools will get to allocate $228,907 toward after-school programs at Ocean City Elementary, Stephen Decatur High, and Showell Elementary Shool.

Worcester County Public Schools Superintendent Lou Taylor asked the Worcester County Board of Commissioners at its Oct. 15 meeting to reallocate a fiscal year 2024 budget overage for after-school activities. The commissioners approved this by a 5-2 vote, with Commissioners Caryn Abbott and Jim Bunting voting nay.

The money will cover $154,000 in employee salaries, $73,000 in transportation, and $1,300 in materials of instruction, according to Tamara Mills, coordinator of instruction for Worcester County Public Schools. She attended this meeting and explained this cost breakdown to the commissioners.

Mills also noted that gas prices and bus driver pay raises have driven up transportation costs in recent years.

Taylor said during the prior school year, money for after-school programs was cut from the Board of Education budget due to Maintenance of Effort – the law that says per-pupil spending may not fall behind from year to year. This school year, money for after-school activities was cut to fulfill the negotiated salary agreement with teachers and employees.

The school board ended up getting grant funding to cover the cost of after-school programs, according to Vince Tolbert, the school system’s finance officer. He also attended the meeting and shared this information directly with the commissioners.

Tolbert said the school board will ask for a restoration of about $421,000 in after-school funding in its upcoming budget for fiscal year 2026.  He also mentioned how, in the last two budget years, some surplus funding would gone toward teacher retirement funds, but that was not the case this year.

Also during this meeting, the commissioners asked school officials about the cost of summer school programs. Mills said it costs about $750,000 to run summer school in Worcester County; the cost runs higher compared to after-school activities because the days are longer and more students attend.

Mills also said it’s difficult to project not only the exact number of students who will show up to summer school from day-to-day, but whether special education students will enroll. A special education student in summer school will require a special education teacher, which adds to staffing costs, she said.

Summer school is “centered around instruction and working with the needs of our children,” Taylor told the commissioners.

The Board of Education’s operating budget for fiscal 2024 was about $126 million.