Photo by Jon Anderson
Hoover school board members listen to a 2025 budget presentation by the school system's chief financial officer, Michele McCay, during a school board meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. From left are board Vice President Alan Paquette and board members Rex Blair and Shelley Shaw.
The Hoover school board on Tuesday night approved a $258 million budget for fiscal 2025, representing a 12% increase from budgeted expenses in 2024, while revenues are expected to grow by just 3.5% to $230 million.
The end result is that the school system plans to spend $27.4 million more than it receives in 2025, requiring the school board to pull from reserves to cover expenses.
However, the school system has healthy reserves, expecting to begin fiscal 2025 with $135 million in the bank. At the end of the year, if all goes as planned, the reserve fund would still have almost $108 million. That would be enough to cover six months’ worth of expenses, and the school system’s chief financial officer said she feels good if the system can keep at least five months’ worth of expenses in reserves.
Essentially, the school system is using its reserve fund to take care of most of the $29.5 million worth of capital projects planned in 2025, Chief Financial Officer Michele McCay said. The school system has kept its reserves at a high enough level that it hasn’t had to borrow any money since 2007.
The Hoover school system has about $129 million in debt, which is scheduled to be paid off by 2040 with principal and interest payments totaling $170 million over the next 17 years. That averages out to be about $10 million a year in debt payments.
Image courtesy of Hoover Board of Education
This is a summary of the Hoover Board of Education's 2025 budget.
FEDERAL COVID-19 MONEY GONE
One of the key elements of the 2025 budget is that the school system will finally use up all of the $19 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding it received by the end of this month, McCay said. That money was used for instructional purposes, including hiring 35 part-time interventionists to help struggling students.
Now that the federal funding is gone, the school district will have to use its own money to fund those positions, along with 25 more interventionists the school board decided to add for this school year.
“The challenge is balancing the loss of those funds with the increasing needs of students,” McCay said. “Our immediate focus is maintaining key programs initiated with those funds while identifying alternative funding sources.”
In addition to those 60 part-time interventionists (which are the equivalent of 30 full-time employees), the Hoover school board is adding another 32 new positions this fiscal year, including 14 exceptional education teachers, six exceptional education aides, 3 English as a Second Language teachers, two counselors, two speech language pathologists, one teacher to assist with students from low-income families, one exceptional education coordinator, one nurse and one middle school athletic director.
As of Aug. 18, the school district had 1,923 total employees, and salaries and benefits make up 85% of the general fund’s budgeted expenditures, costing $191 million, McCay said. The 2025 budget includes money to cover the 2% raise for all school employees mandated by the state Legislature, plus increased costs resulting from employees gaining another year of experience on the salary schedule.
The Hoover school district pays 739 of its certificated employees more money than the state provides for those positions and pays the full salary and benefits for 298 teachers and local school administrators, McCay said. That means the school district pays $21.6 million out of local revenues for certificated employees’ salaries and benefits, representing 23% of the cost for all certificated employees, she said.
SPECIAL EDUCATION COSTS RISING
Another important consideration is that expenses for special education services continue to grow, McCay said.
As of Sept. 1, Hoover schools had 1,663 students identified with physical, cognitive or learning disabilities, which is 11.7% of the total students enrolled. That’s up from 1,550 special education students at this point last year and up from about 1,080 in fiscal 2014., McCay said.
“Our challenge remains to meet the legal obligations to provide students with access to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment despite the lack of full financial support from the federal government,” McCay said.
The school system plans to spend $33 million on special education in 2025. The federal government 47 years ago promised to cover 40% of the costs for special education, but the most the federal government has ever provided Hoover schools is 18% in 2005, McCay said. In fiscal 2025, the federal government is picking up only 8.5% of the cost of special education services, she said.
Total special education costs have risen 74% since 2014, school board member Rex Blair said.
Of the $230 million in revenues that Hoover schools expect in 2025, $126 million of it (54%) come from local revenue sources, including $57.5 million from Hoover property taxes, $16.6 million from Jefferson County property taxes, $6.7 million from Shelby County property taxes, $5 million from the city of Hoover general fund, $2.2 million in interest income, $1.8 million from the Jefferson County Commission, $1.8 million from Shelby County sales taxes, $1 million from Medicaid and $420,000 from rental income.
The state of Alabama provides $95 million for Hoover schools (41% of the district’s revenues), while the federal government provides $9.3 million (4%).
Eighty percent of the school district’s general fund expenditures go toward instruction, while 12% go to operations and maintenance, 4% go to auxiliary services such as transportation and 3% go to general administrative services. The school district plans to spend $7.5 million on transportation in 2025 and $11.9 million on child nutrition.
The number of children who qualify for and receive free or reduced meals at school rose to 4,551 for fiscal 2025, representing 33.6% of the total students enrolled in Hoover schools, McCay said. That’s up from 4,322 students in fiscal 2024, according to the budget.
CAPITAL PROJECTS
The $29.4 million in capital projects planned in fiscal 2025 includes:
- $3.9 million for a six-classroom addition at Bluff Park Elementary School
- $3.8 million for roofing projects at Riverchase Elementary, Spain Park High, Gwin Elementary and the Blue Ridge gym
- $2.4 million for bathroom renovations at Hoover High and Trace Crossings and Greystone elementary schools
- $1.8 million for various maintenance and repairs throughout the district
- $1.78 million for a locker room renovation at Spain Park High School.
- $1.7 million for a building addition at the Riverchase Career Connection Center to accommodate a new automotive academy
- $1.6 million for an athletic field upgrade at Berry Middle School
- $1.55 million for heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades across the system
- $1.5 million for locker room renovations at Bumpus and Simmons middle schools
- $1.2 million for elevator modernization
- $1.2 million for a heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrade at Gwin Elementary
- $1 million for a parking addition at the Riverchase Career Connection Center
- $750,000 for a building addition for the transportation department
- $750,000 for a parking addition at Green Valley Elementary
- $600,000 for shelving at Green Valley Elementary classrooms
- $500,000 for gym floor replacements at Hoover High and Gwin Elementary
- $500,000 for playgrounds at Gwin Elementary and Brock’s Gap Intermediate
- $500,000 for interior door replacements at Simmons Middle School
- $450,000 for an athletic field upgrade at Bumpus Middle School
- $250,000 for bleacher replacements at Gwin Elementary
- $250,000 for a concession renovation at Simmons Middle School
Superintendent Kevin Maddox said Hoover people often like to compare their school district to some of the highest-performing school districts in the state.
“Go find a district that looks like us with the demographics we have and the poverty we have and the challenges we have and see where they rank,” Maddox said.
The fact that Hoover compares so well with the highest-performing school districts is a testament to the great people in the school district and the phenomenal work they do and the way they manage resources, he said.
“Our facilities are getting older every day, but they don’t look like it because we’ve done such a good job … in terms of keeping our facilities up,” Maddox said. “I just think it speaks volumes of what’s been done over a long period of time to keep the district where it is. We always have to be just a little bit better than we were yesterday to just stay where we are. To get better, we have to be a lot better than we were yesterday. We take that challenge seriously.”
