What happened to LR5 band funding? What school district says
Midlands high school bands thought they would be receiving $30,000 in supplemental funding this year. But that money hasn’t come to pass, leaving some trying to cover their competition season expenses.
After the booster club president at Irmo High School asked about the missing money at the Feb. 23 school board meeting, Lexington-Richland 5 officials acknowledged confusion about how band funding would be distributed this year.
The school district did indeed allocate $30,000 to cover band costs this year, district chief financial officer Heather Tucker told The State. But that amount was meant to be distributed across all three high schools in the Chapin-Irmo area, with marching bands at Chapin, Dutch Fork and Irmo high schools receiving $10,000 each.
That and a change in how band money was distributed this year left the programs confused about how much money they were supposed to receive.
“It wasn’t meant to be 30 times three, which I think is where the confusion and miscommunication with the schools happened,” Tucker said. “I had other schools reach out and say they were counting on that money.”
The school district is working to cover any shortfalls the band programs might have, Tucker said, with money to cover any shortfall coming out of the general fund budget.
“We’ll make it right and make sure they have what they need to travel,” the CFO said.
Previously, each school band received $20,000 from a “pupil activity” fund to cover out-of-school activities and personnel who were not otherwise regular district employees. But this year, those band costs were wrapped into the district’s normal band funding, part of a broader change to how Lexington-Richland 5 handles supplemental funding for student activities.
At its Feb. 23 meeting, the Lexington-Richland 1 school board approved a supplemental study to reconsider how the district handles funding to cover costs associated with activities from athletics to arts programs.
“The supplements are what you do outside of your duties,” District Superintendent Akil Ross said in a presentation to staff on the study. “One of the issues we have with special duties is Club A at one school will be doing something totally different from Club A at another school, but they get the same supplement.”
Once the study is complete, the district hopes to introduce a more structured funding schedule, based on the size of a club, how frequently it meets and whether any travel is involved. Ross said the study should be completed by May, in time for the school board to set its 2026-27 academic year budget.
In addition, Tucker said the 2024-25 capital funds budget included $1 million to cover new equipment and other purchases for band and orchestra programs. That money came out of an unneeded $1.5 million that had been set aside for portable classrooms. The other $500,000 went toward safety vehicles and upgrades across the district.
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