The School Board of Alachua County (SBAC) approved a tentative budget and millage rates for the 2024-25 fiscal year at a special meeting on Thursday. 

The total Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) proposed budget is set at $597,413,050 budget, a change from the $608,290,212 formerly advertised. The budget may continue to fluctuate until FY24’s budget is completely closed out in time for the second reading on Sept. 11. 

The budget includes $334,311,969 for the general fund, $70,639,392 for the special revenue fund, $8,666,702 for the debt service fund, $99,262,582 for capital projects and $57,285,687 for the internal service fund. 

The budget also includes a transfer from the capital projects fund to the general fund to keep it balanced, which Board Members Tina Certain and Sarah Rockwell said is not a practice that should be relied on too often. 

“While I appreciate that we have done a capital funds transfer in order to balance the budget, I’m concerned that that is not a sustainable financial practice, year after year,” Rockwell said. 

For millage, ACPS will receive about $78.2 million in required local effort, $19.4 million in discretionary operating funds, $38.9 million in capital outlay and $25.9 in additional voted millage. This brings a total millage revenue of $162,498,154, an increase of over $8.5 million over last year. 

This year’s required local effort, set by Florida’s requirements for what schools must contribute to receive state funding, is proposed to be 3.0130, up from the rollback rate of 2.944, which would produce the same amount of revenue as last year. 

The capital outlay rate is proposed to be 1.5 mills, discretionary operating rate to be 0.748, and additional voted millage to remain steady at 1.0 mills. 

The county’s taxable value increased by about $2.37 billion since last year, and the total millage rate is to change from 6.4320 mills to 6.2610.