Lower raises on the table as Augusta County Schools struggle to balance the budget

VERONA — Like Waynesboro and Staunton, Augusta County is struggling to balance its school budget for fiscal year 2024. Also like those two localities, a lot is unknown as they wait for the Virginia General Assembly to pass a budget. For now, Augusta County is operating off of the projected Governor's budget, knowing that will change as Gov. Glenn Youngkin works with the Senate and House of Delegates to find a compromise.

On Thursday, March 2, school board members looked at a budget that was just over $4 million in the red based off of the proposed Governor's budget.

Augusta County was in the same situation a year ago, not having a state budget but required to submit a balanced budget to the board of supervisors. This year the date to submit that is March 27.

It's confusing and frustrating for those involved.

School Board Chairperson Nick Collins said he sent an email to the local legislators telling them that they failed to get their work accomplished. Because of that, he said, the numbers the school board are looking at are just speculative.

"I think this is a total failure of their duties to the citizens of the state of Virginia," Collins said.

There is a $4.2 million difference in educational funding between the Senate's proposed budget and the House's. The Governor's falls in between, about $645,000 more than the House.

During a work session Thursday before the regular monthly meeting, staff presented school board members 17 items to consider cutting from the budget to reduce spending. Most of the items are first time expenditures. Existing items wouldn't be cut but the school board would not be able to add some things it had hoped to.

The largest savings would come from keeping level funding in the instructional program. That would mean plans to increase that budget item by $432,028 would not happen and the budget from last year would be carried over. There was also a plan to purchase five 10-passenger vans at $300,000. That would not happen. Neither would kitchen upgrades for consumer and family science classrooms at $100,000. Resurfacing tennis courts ($100,000) would be delayed.

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Augusta County is also anticipating saving another $200,000 through attrition by not replacing some positions that become open through retirement and resignations. And proposed changes to coaching stipends would not happen next year, saving $53,460.

The complete list was shown during the school board meeting and is available on the recorded meeting on Facebook (starting at the 22:30 mark).

If the school board approves eliminating all 17 items, that would still leave it $2 million out of budget. While that could be made up in the new state budget, the gap might have to be closed through a reduction in the proposed 7% raise for staff.

"You go from a 7% to a 5% (raise) and you're balanced," Collins said during the work session. "Not what we want to do but that's part of the bullpen plan."

"At the end of the day when we've got to be balanced, that's where we can get the big lump without nickel-and-diming everything to death," said Middle River representative David Shiflett.

The school board is scheduled to vote on the budget March 16 and, if there is no state budget by then, which seems likely to be the case, they will present based on the Governor's budget.

"Whenever the General Assembly passes a budget, if it's additional revenue for us, then I think we will reconvene and we'll start putting things back in," Superintendent Eric Bond said.

Bond said a fear he has is that, if there is no state budget by late May, teacher contracts may be based on the proposed numbers in the Governor's budget and could change when a final budget is finally passed, meaning contracts would have to be adjusted if salaries are part of the process used to balanced the budget.

"This thing is still a long way from finished," Collins said.

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— Patrick Hite is a reporter at The News Leader. Story ideas and tips always welcome. Contact Patrick (he/him/his) at phite@newsleader.com and follow him on Twitter @Patrick_Hite. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Augusta County: Lower raises on the table as school board works to balance budget