Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NATCHEZ — Natchez Adams School District is looking to raise local tax contributions with the proposed budget that was presented for a public hearing on Tuesday. However, its overall budgeted revenue is predicted to fall drastically from Fiscal Year 2025 to 2026.

The budget hearing on Tuesday was a discussion-only meeting. The final budget will be presented for approval at the next school board meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. on July 22 at the Braden Administrative Building at 10 Homochitto St.

Revenues in FY 2025 are projected to be at $88,594,329, but in FY 2026, it’s projected to be $72,665,992 — a difference of nearly $16 million.

The 3 percent ad valorem tax increase the district is proposing is projected to generate tax revenue of $14,815,687, about 20 percent of the budget. This is an increase from $14,384,162 in this year’s budget. Ad valorem taxes are paid on homes, vehicle tags, business fixtures and equipment and rental properties in the county.

At the same time, assessed property values in Adams County have been rising, so the budget request may not translate into an increase in millage. The millage rate is set by the Adams County Board of Supervisors when it calculates its ad valorem taxes.

School officials say an increase in local tax effort to fund district operations was made necessary by a decrease in both state and federal funding. Revenue from state sources in FY 2026 is estimated to be at $19,653,614 and revenue from federal sources at $17,906,424.

In FY 2025, funding from state sources was at $19.9 million and funding from federal sources was at $33.2 million.

The decrease in state funding is, in part, because the district has seen a decline in average daily attendance. The average daily attendance of students is down to 2,437 in 2025 compared to 2,459 in 2024 and 2,608 in 2023.

Compounding the loss, the district has recently been reassessed based on the 2020 Decennial Census numbers and the number of people receiving assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

Because of this, some district families will have to pay for school meals, which has not been the case in over a decade.

However, the largest revenue loss the district has seen is because a freeze was placed on the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds allotted in the federal CARES Act, which were intended to support K-12 schools in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. This means addressing learning loss, providing better air quality to the schools with air conditioning and ventilation systems and also providing the technology to improve at-home and in-person learning capabilities.

The district stands to lose $2.8 million that it spent while planning to be reimbursed with ESSER funds, Superintendent Zandra McDonald said.

Among the anticipated ESSER projects were improvements at the Morgantown and McLaurin elementary schools by updating HVAC and ventilation systems. These projects were ongoing and near-complete in the midst of the funds being frozen, McDonald said.

“That project was started in January with a completion date of mid-April. But of course, the federal spending pause was implemented, I believe, in March,” she said.

The district is appealing to the Department of Education, trying to recoup the $2.8 million. In the meantime, the cost of those renovations is absorbed by the district’s general fund.