Each high school in the Palm Beach County School District is being asked to trim an average of $534,853 in spending — an amount roughly equal to the collective salary of 10 first-year teachers — as the district struggles to craft a 2026 budget that balances with an expected loss of nearly $66 million in state funding.
The reduced high school spending would add up to $12.84 million, and, combined with $7.31 million from middle schools ($221,389 per school on average) and $10.58 million from elementary schools ($95,333 per school on average) illustrates the direct, school-level impact of the district’s sudden and sharp enrollment decline, which has led to the expected loss of $65.9 million in state funding.
“We’re in bad times right now,” School Board Member Marcia Andrews said after Chief Financial Officer Heather Frederick walked school board members through the district’s difficult budget realities. “This was easy to understand, but it’s really painful.”
The district’s most recent count shows enrollment in distict-operated and charter schools to be down by nearly 7,900 students from the year before. Projections for the 2026-27 school year show another 3,300 students will leave.
State education funding is pegged to enrollment, and fewer students means less funding.
What is getting cut in school district budget
Frederick said she and her staff have nearly closed the budget shortfall for fiscal year 2026 by asking for a combined $30.7 million in reduced spending from schools and making other “adjustments” like eliminating vacant positions and dipping into reserves.
Those offsets put the district in the black by $10.8 million, Frederick said, but there is still no accounting for the $26.9 million pay package the district has offered employees. And a peek into the next budget year shows a $38.3 million projected shortfall, she added.
District officials have cited declining enrollment and the resulting loss of state funding in arguing that the district can’t afford more than a one-time bonus of 1.5% and a salary increase of 1.5% in negotiations with the Palm Beach County Classroom Teachers Association.
The union, which has been seeking a raise of 5%, declared an impasse in those negotiations. A special magistrate was set to weigh in on the impasse on Friday, Feb. 13.
School board member Erica Whitfield said the district is not happy to be asking so much of its teachers and schools.
“I don’t love the idea that we have to go to our principals and say, ‘Cut more money. Cut more money,'” she said. “But the reality of losing students is something that we have to be willing to engage with. We can’t just ignore that this is happening.”
Where does the Florida education money go?
Districts have long chafed at the state’s insistence that funding be tied to enrollment. They note that district costs don’t automatically go down when enrollment declines.
School board member Edwin Ferguson expressed some of that unhappiness after Frederick’s budget presentation.
“What is the state spending its money on?” he asked. “It’s clearly not public education.”
The state allocates money to districts for teacher raises, but the amount has often not been enough to cover the cost of raises that equal or exceed the rising costs teachers face.
Palm Beach County voters sought to address that problem by passing a sales tax increase to raise money for teacher pay. That tax was extended by voters in 2022, and it’s up for another extension in November.
Frederick noted that, when enrollment was steady or increasing, the district had enough for teacher raises.
“When we had the money, we gave it to the teachers, and we gave more than the per student increases that we received from the state,” she said. “We’re just not in that position to be able to do that now without putting the district in a structural misalignment where you end up spending more money than what we’re bringing in.”
Wayne Washington is a journalist covering education and Riviera Beach development for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: How will Palm Beach County schools cover $66 million loss from state?
Reporting by Wayne Washington, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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