As this blog discusses the Fulton County Schools budget development process, it is essential to have a foundational understanding of the topic. So, let’s jump right in.
What is a Budget? A Simple Explanation
A budget is a plan for how to spend money over a set period. It shows how much money you have coming in and how much you are spending. The money you receive is called revenue, while the money you pay for goods and services is called expenditures. A budget may also include information about debt, savings, and other financing sources. At the end of the period, a budget compares what you actually spent to what you planned to spend.
Budgets are essential for ensuring proper financial management for entities with a fixed income, such as school districts. Let’s apply this straightforward explanation to the budget for Fulton County Schools.
The Fulton County Schools Budget: A Simplified Examination of FY2026
Fulton County Schools (FCS) is in the process of revising and amending its budget for the fiscal year 2025-2026 (FY 26). This comprehensive document spans over 425 pages and provides significant insights into the financial operations of FCS. In this post, however, we will focus on a high-level overview of the proposed FY 26 budget. Below is the latest tentative budget for the fiscal year 2025-26.
Utilizing the explanation provided in the above section, here is a breakdown of the components shown in the Fiscal Year 2025-26 Budgets statement.
Revenue: How Fulton County Schools Funds Its Operations
FCS receives revenue from four primary sources – local, state, federal, and other-local. To simplify things, FCS categorizes money inflows by source, e.g., all funds from the Georgia Department of Education are listed as state revenue.
For FY 26, FCS projects that revenue from all four sources will total $1,826,560,266. Below is an illustration showing the total projected amount of revenue per source.
Looking at the tentative budget for fiscal year 2025-26, you will see that all four revenue sources are listed under the header ‘Revenue.’
Expenditures: How Fulton County Schools Serves Our Community
FCS funds its operations using revenue from local, state, federal, and other sources. For the tentative budget shown above, expenditures are categorized by function. As defined by FCS, “the function describes the activity for which a service or material is acquired.”
For FY 26, FCS projects that expenditures for all functions will total $2,459,085,287. Below is an illustration showing the total projected expenditures per function.
Again, looking at the tentative budget for fiscal year 2025-26, you will see that all sixteen expenditure functions are listed under the header ‘Expenditures.’
Will Fulton County Schools Balance Its Budget?
No, FCS will not have a balanced budget or savings based on the projections in the Fiscal Year 2025-26 Budgets statement. In fact, FCS anticipates a deficit of $632,525,021 in FY26.
This deficit is shown in the the tentative budget for fiscal year 2025-26 as line item ‘Excess (deficiency) of Revenue over (under)Expenditures.’ Below is a screenshot of the line item from the tentative FY 26 budget.
A Foundation for Future Exploration
I hope this straightforward overview of the FCS budget serves as a common starting point. However, as you know, budgets are much more complex. In the upcoming post, I will provide more details on the remaining elements of the budget statement, including funds, fund balances, and other sources of financing.
The Learning Ledger 
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