Summary of 2/29/24 School Board Meeting—Budget Presentation

Meeting Open: Mr. David Priddy opened the meeting, indicating Chair Diaz-Torres would be participating virtually.  Ms. Sutton, Ms. Turner, and Ms. Kadera were present.

There were no board announcements, superintendent announcements or public comment due to the budget presentation.

Dr. Durán opened his budget presentation with some remarks:

–Can make budget work if we have the ‘proper revenue’ coming from the county and the state.

–Still need to advocate for additional revenue.

–“Lots of things I wish I had”--”unmet funding needs”

–Three priority areas were sent from School Board.

–School Board also “directed me to limit all ‘new’ funding requests due to ‘challenging’ budget areas”.

–Focus is on “maintaining and sustaining core features in our budgets.”

Major themes from his presentation:

Overall budget for FY2025: $824.7M. This represents a 1.5% increase over FY2024

Priority 1: Student Well-Being and Academic Progress

$2.7 million (additional 20.75 FTEs): due to ‘enrollment changes’ (Editor’s note: the enrollment at APS is roughly identical to 2019 levels, yet this represents a significant increase over FTEs in 2019-2020 school year).

$3.7M: Maintain supports for ‘special populations’

–mainly English Language Learners

NEW add: Lightspeed: “student safety and harm”--would alert staff so a threat assessment can be done based on what a student is writing on an APS device. More details on exactly how this technology works was not provided.

$2.8M: Continue existing instructional resources and supports.

Priority 2: Recruit, Retain and Invest in Staff

Proposed: 3.3% average staff compensation increase ($17.1M): 

–$11.2M Step adjustment 

–$5.9M 1% COLA

–Note: this is categorized as an ‘unmet’ funding need–proposed but no money allocated in existing budget for it.

$15.7M reduction in Central Office expenditures

$2.3M school-based funding reductions

–Dr. Durán then stated that APS has an ‘total core unfunded needs’ of $25.1M

Priority #3: Operational Excellence

$4.1M total investment.

Additional Funding Sources and Addressing ‘Unmet Needs’

Need $6.4M from County Board. Potential for more but don’t know now. County adopts its budget on April 20th.

If we get more from County, it will be in the form of a tax increase:

—Ranges from 1.5 cent to 2.5 cent tax increase

—State funding–need $10M

Total potential gap: $29.5M–at this point, we don’t know state or county budget. Actual amount will depend on the final amount of funding from county and state.

Dr. Durán also referenced a JLARC study which indicated that VA is underfunding public school students by what amounts to $1900 per student.

Public hearing on SB proposed budget is April 23.

School Board Member Budget Comments

Ms. Kadera: “Over the years, I have heard people bristle at the idea that APS has a structural deficit. In fact, we do. Our share of revenues…do not cover our ongoing expenses. Our budget advisory board has expressed this concern multiple times.”

Ms. Kadera went on to cite other local school systems (FCPS and LCPS) who also acknowledge in their budgeting that they have a structural deficit and that the reliance on use of reserve funds to plug ongoing deficits is not fiscally responsible. 

Ms. Kadera went on to say that there are increasing demands being placed on schools, demands which increase budget needs even in the face of static enrollment. 

Ms. Turner echoed Dr. Durán’s assertion that the funding from the state isn’t where it should be and called upon citizens to ask state representatives for the needed funding. She also echoed Ms. Kadera’s concern that schools are being asked to do more for students than in years’ past, which costs more.

Ms. Turner then compared the $2.7M in Central admin staff cuts to the $2.1M in school-based staff cuts, noting that essentially the same number of positions were being cut in Syphax as were being eliminated in schools, and that many of the ‘cut’ positions at Syphax were currently vacant positions. Given that the school-based cuts (e.g., reading interventionists and support for ELL) directly impact students, she challenged Dr. Durán to ‘take a hard look’ at central admin costs to find additional ways to cut, rather than cutting school-based staff.

She went on to detail the new assessment results just released, noting that there are more ES students mid year in need of intensive reading support compared to the beginning of the year. Ms. Turner said that this is the second year in a row that this has happened, and that we must focus on funding the teachers that directly impact these students. Issues in assessment performance were also noted at the MS level.

Ms. Sutton discussed her two priorities re the budget–the first being recruiting and retaining teaching staff. The second priority was the supports required for marginalized and disadvantaged students and those most impacted by the pandemic response.  She emphasized the importance of having a final budget that reflects these priorities.

Mr. Priddy added that he looked forward to hearing from the community about the budget. He then read a prepared statement from Ms. Diaz-Torres, which included: 

–her concern that the budget does not support the increased mental health needs of the student population.

–the importance of compensating teachers and other staff w/ parity to our regional peers.

–her dismay that positions need to be eliminated.

New Business–none

Meeting was adjourned at 8:02 PM.