<p>Franklin schools is planning how to spend more than $60 million in money budgeted for next year, including more than $3 million in new taxpayer money that voters agreed to.</p>
<p>The budget for next year is growing by about 6 percent due to the increase in property taxes that voters approved for the next eight years during a referendum vote in May.</p>
<p>In total, $14.8 million will go to debt payments, about the same amount the district is spending this year. Franklin schools will not be done paying off the money it borrowed to open its high school until 2026, and is also paying off renovations to the middle school, Chief Financial Officer Tina Gross said.</p>
<p>The $3.4 million in new money will be split to increase salaries for teachers and support staff and bolster mental health services for students at Franklin schools.</p>
<p>Although the referendum money is classified separately in the proposed budget and Franklin Schools won’t get its first new dollars from property taxes until June, the district will begin spending from either extra money from unused operations or education budget dollars or from its rainy day fund in January. The rainy day fund is used as a cushion when extra spending is needed beyond what is originally budgeted for. It would then reimburse that fund once the district receives property tax money in June, Gross said.</p>
<p>Of the $3.4 million generated by the property tax increase each year, $1 million will go to increasing each teacher’s salary by $2,500. The district will also spend $610,000 each year to increase support staff salaries by 10 to 12 percent. Franklin Schools will spend $750,000 on increasing the mental health support for its students, including hiring the district’s first mental health coordinator, with either social workers or contracted therapists from outside agencies such as Adult and Child at each school, Gross said.</p>
<p>The remaining money, about $1 million, would be set aside for the district’s reserves, which will help replace the money Franklin schools is losing because of property tax caps, she said.</p>
<p>The goal is to hire a mental health coordinator before the end of the year, in order to give that coordinator enough time to create a district-wide mental health plan before any of those social workers or contracted social workers begin, Gross said.</p>
<p>The mental health program requires the most planning of any of the uses for the referendum dollars, and administrators, including Gross, visited area school districts such as Hamilton Southeastern Schools to determine how best to serve Franklin students, she said.</p>
<p>Hamilton Southeastern has a contract with Community Hospital North, which provides therapists to the school district and charges students’ insurance for mental health services. Many families of students at Franklin schools, 42.5 percent of whom receive free- or reduced-price lunch, might not be able to afford that type of system. Visiting a variety of schools and drawing ideas from their best practices is a viable way to craft the best mental health services for students at Franklin schools, Gross said.</p>
<p>“For us, it’s pulling from best practices for different schools and pulling together what looks best for us,” Gross said. “We also visited a school in Bloomington and the advice they got there was less people and more therapy dogs. We are planning on piloting therapy dogs in two different elementary schools.”</p>
<p>It will take six to eight months for Franklin schools to get the dogs, and during that time school officials will determine where those dogs will go. If the dogs prove successful in helping students at the elementary level, they might also be used at the middle and high school. Mental health professionals, however, will still be part of the plan for Franklin schools, Gross said.</p>
<p>During Franklin schools’ Sept. 9 board meeting, a public hearing will be conducted on the proposed budget, with time for public comment. The school board will vote on the budget during its Oct. 21 board meeting.</p>
