Bay District School Board approves more than half billion dollar budget

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG) - The Bay District School Board held its final public hearing regarding the district’s budget Thursday.

The budget for 2019 and 2020 was approved by the board.

Also up for discussion was the budget for the current school year.

The new budget, at more than half a billion dollars, was approved unanimously.

School Board Chair Steve Moss said in the meeting the budget is high for the district because of recent challenges the area has had to face.

“Back when Hurricane Michael hit we said ‘boy, what a unique year for the budget’, needless to say now with the COVID and everything else again we are back saying ' what a unique year for the budget' and so there has been a lot of challenges, there were challenges back when the hurricane hit and now there are challenges, just different challenges in regards to the COVID,” Moss said.

With the new challenges the district faces, this year’s budget is over $118 million more than last year’s budget.

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