CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – The Horry County school district is looking at how to spend its money in next year’s proposed $684 million budget to keep up with the growing student population.

The district is already looking at a five-year plan to build more schools, but the board for Horry County Schools talked about short-term solutions at a work session meeting Monday evening. The HCS board discussed the proposed 2018-19 budget. 

The district is trying to retain teachers. The proposed budget has a two-percent pay raise for all regular employees and teachers would get a one-percent raise on top of that. The two-percent raise would cost the district $5,260,734. The one-percent teacher raise would cost $1,711,534.

“Our salary base for teachers is pretty competitive as it is, but we’re not only competing with other school districts in South Carolina, but we’re also competing against school districts in other states like North Carolina and Georgia,” said HCS spokesperson Lisa Bourcier.

The budget also calls for $3,206,651 to add new staff because the district is projected to add about 850 more students.

“That’s almost a school,” said interim school board chair Neil James. “So when you look at it, we’ve built five (schools) in the last year and a half, or in the process of winding up building five. We’ll have to look at adding some additional capacity going forward.”

James took over as interim board chair Monday after chairman Joe DeFeo died on May 3.

The budget also increases group health insurance and retirement contributions by about $5 million. Group health insurance would increase by $1,662,742. Employer retirement pay would go up by $3,344,500.

One area HCS is expected to save money is utility bills. HCS is expected to spend $1,504,988 less on utilities.

That’s because schools are adding more efficient heating and cooling machines, and the district isn’t seeing a rise in utility rates.

“The increase that we thought would materialize last year did not,” said HCS chief financial officer John Gardner. “Secondly, we’ve been doing a good job replacing a lot of the HVAC systems, and replacing them with higher SEER ratings.”

The school board will continue discussing the budget next Monday.

A public hearing and approval of the budget is expected on June 11.