Midlands school district staring down budget shortfall as attendance drops
The school district covering the Chapin and Irmo area could see a drop in state funding as early as October because of a sharp decline in its student body this school year.
Lexington-Richland 5 has clocked a decline of enrollment of at least 627 students since classes started earlier in August, compared to the same period last year.
That’s raising concerns at the district office, because the amount of funding the district receives from the state is tied to its overall enrollment. The school district’s funding for the 2025-26 school year will be locked in based on attendance on the 45th day of the school year on Oct. 9.
District staff expressed fears in the spring about how a potential drop in attendance could affect the budget for the year. At the time, board discussion pointed at the opening of a new charter school campus for Gray Collegiate Academy in the Irmo area as siphoning both students and funding from Lexington-Richland 5.
Gray Collegiate said in April that it expected to have 600 students enrolled at its Irmo school this school year, about the same number as Lexington-Richland 5 reports being down at the start of the year. As of that time, the school district served around 17,000 students in total.
When considering the prospect of the charter school opening, Ross warned the expected drop could require the district to need to raise taxes or cut positions in the new school year.
Now it appears that the decline in enrollment could negatively impact the district’s budget, which was set for the school year back in June. At Monday’s school board meeting, Superintendent Akil Ross asked that the board consider approving a budget amendment at the board’s Oct. 27 meeting, depending on how many students are ultimately lost.
“We want to reevaluate where we will be at the funding standpoint of the 45th day,” Ross said. “We are going to be looking to see where we land on Oct. 9, when we may be looking to reassign funds due to potential state aid to classrooms reductions.”
Such a review of the district’s budget health usually takes place in January, midway through the school year. But Ross felt the need to move up the board’s review to October due to the enrollment drop.
“We are in a good place with our current budget, with what I call parachutes built into the budget to take us through this year,” Ross said.
In total, 64% of Lexington-Richland 5’s funding comes from state appropriations. The state also mandated a 2% increase for school bus drivers this year, which will be an additional $385,683, plus $4.8 million more to increase teachers’ starting salaries to $49,000. About $1.3 million was needed to hire 16 additional teachers in order to reduce class sizes.
This story was originally published August 26, 2025 at 12:41 PM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misattributed the claim that a new campus for Gray Collegiate would cost Lexington-Richland 5 students and funding. It came from an April school board discussion.
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