Henry County Schools has adopted its budget for the upcoming 2025-2026 school year. The school district is anticipating general fund expenses of $596 million compared to $568 million in revenues. The school board approved the budget at their May 12, 2025 meeting.
Henry Schools 2025-2026 Budget
Henry County Schools has an enrollment of about 43,000 students across 53 schools. They employ about 6,000 individuals to fulfill this mission. The majority of the district’s budget, 92%, supports district employees’ wages and benefits and contracted staff. All other operating expenses fall in the other 8%.
The Henry County Schools FY 2025-2026 budget has $596 million in general fund expenses. This is an increase over the FY 2025 amended budget, with $573 million in expenses. HCS employees will be receiving the following pay increases in the 2025-2026 budget:
- $3,000 increase for teachers compared to the FY 2025 adopted scale,
- 3% increase for classified and professional staff, and
- $1,300 increase for administrative staff.
Henry County teachers received a mid-year pay raise in December 2024. The mid-year raise was valued at $2,760. The FY 2026 budget has a small increase over the mid-year raise.
Since 2018, Henry County Schools has increased teacher pay by over $15,000. This represents a 42% increase over seven years. This not only benefits teachers, but also school counselors and assistant principals whose salary scales are based on the teacher salary scale.
New Positions
The final school district budget includes the addition of 63 new school-based positions and 10 new district office positions. This is a reduction of 4 positions from the tentative budget passed in April.
New positions include 41 new teachers, 6 new multi-tiered support system interventionists, 5 new paraprofessionals, and 4 new assistant principals. The new teachers include 17 Exceptional Student Education (ESE) teachers and 9 teachers for world languages and orchestra. Other new positions include 7 support positions, such as psychologists, instructional and behavior intervention coaches.
The new district office positions include five positions in transportation and one each in the following departments: maintenance, student services, human resources, legal and administrative support.
The Budget vs Student Enrollment
From 2020 to 2025, the Henry County Schools’ general fund budget has increased by about $200 million. Meanwhile, student enrollment has remained fairly constant around 43,000 students.
Public school enrollment in the United States reached its highest levels in fall 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the nationwide enrollment is down. Various factors, such as declining birth rates and more parents opting for private school or homeschool, are contributors. Nationally, public schools had 1.8 million fewer students in fall 2023 compared to fall 2019. That’s a 2.5% decline. Within Georgia, public school enrollment is down 1.1% in that same time.
Henry County’s enrollment has changed by just a few students, even while new homes are being built in the county. Though the overall district enrollment hasn’t changed, some school clusters are seeing growth. Our January 2025 article analyzed that data.
Featured image shows a FY 2026 budget overview. Henry County Schools graphic.
