As the current fiscal year comes to an end, the Franklin County Board of Education continues to see growth by approving its largest budget to date.

The budget for this year is $40.9 million, which is up $1.5 million from the past year’s budget. This was the first budget FCBOE has passed exceeding $40 million.

“We were really fortunate,” said FCBOE Chief School Financial Officer Carla Knight. “Whenever everything with COVID hit, everyone assumed we would be looking at a much smaller budget this year, but we actually ended up with our largest budget ever.”

Board member Shannon Oliver said it is great to see the budget continually growing because of the great job everyone has done to balance the budget.

“I remember a time when we were not this well off,” Oliver said. “To see this growth, especially with us continuing to grow over the past few years – that is awesome.”

Knight said she is proud of the growth she has seen in Franklin County Schools and all of the hard work it takes to keep the system growing.

“We are seeing growth every year, and I think it is wonderful that we keep continuing to see that,” Knight said.

Franklin County Superintendent Greg Hamilton said he is proud of the work he has seen from everyone to ensure COVID-19 has minimal impact. Hamilton said Franklin County has had a successful start to the beginning of school for both in-person and virtual learning.

“We aren’t dealing with anything everyone else isn’t dealing with, but overall we are off to a pretty smooth start,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton said he is very impressed with how virtual learning is going with the majority of virtual students on the same page traditional students.

“it is still a work in progress, as we knew it would be, but I am very pleased with how things are going so far,” Hamilton said.

All in-person learning is following the same learning plan as online learning to allow for students to adjust quickly to online learning if they have to quarantine.

“If they have it in the classroom, we have it remotely,” Hamilton said. “As a parent, you want what your kids are doing at home to be what’s going on in the classroom. I think this has given kids the chance to all be on the same page.”

Hamilton said forms will be sent out soon for remote learners to get a count of who will be returning to school for the next nine-week segment.

The next FCBOE meeting will be Nov. 17 beginning at 5 p.m. for the work session with the regular meeting immediately following.