Teachers remain uneasy about ongoing delays in approval of FY-2023 Public Schools Budget

The final in a series of three presentations on departmental Fiscal Year-2022/23 budget requests at Tuesday evening’s Warren County Board of Supervisors work session was the briefest at about six minutes of the 84-minute work session. However, post adjournment discussion among Warren County Public School employees present, but not allowed by Board Chair Cheryl Cullers to offer input during the work session, indicated that it is likely to remain the most scrutinized and debated budget as the county’s elected leaders approach a decision on what appears to be plans to cut the county’s public schools local operational budget request by 25%, or as much as $7.4 million in local funding.

The agenda packet included numbers brought to the board by a county-schools liaison committee recently formed to clarify and hash out public school budget variables. Among a 37-item list of cuts totaling $1.8 million under the header “Potential $6.9m Reductions” were: 1-English Language Teacher; 2-Elementary Art Teachers; 2 Elementary School Counselors; a Director of Communications position; 2-Library Assistants; Senior, Junior, Sophomore, and Freshman Class Sponsor Stipends, among others.

However, a sub-list of six cuts apparently already on the table totaling another $5.7 million included some EYE-OPENERS: Eliminate Extra-curricular Events and Athletics (saving $1,040,782); Do not fill eight vacant teacher positions (saving $596,928); Cost of 5% Salary Increase (saving $2,324,206); Furlough all 200 day + staff three Professional Development Days (saving $727,317), and two others eliminating a December bonus ($864,430) and elimination of “Remaining Supplements” ($160,878).

One graphic indicated a “Final Proposed FY2023 Operating Budget” for public schools of $71,108,401, an increase of $2,960,856 over last year’s budget of $68,147,545. However, as one school employee present later observed to this reporter, the requested “Increase in Local Funding” to achieve that budget was $0 (zero dollars), as State and CARES funding would entirely cover the increase.

During the brief staff and board discussion, Board Chair and South River Supervisor Cheryl Cullers tried to assure those public school employees present that teaching positions and salaries were not under threat by the proposed cuts. Glancing at the agenda packet and noting the presence of such staffing and salary cuts, Cullers, a former public schools nurse, stated: “Teachers salaries were never a consideration for us. We value the teachers in this community, just as much as we value the fire admin people who were here,” Cullers said referencing Fire & Rescue Chief James Bonzano and staffer Jane Meadows, present earlier asking the board to approve additions of $2,600 to $7,250 to base pay for various levels of staff EMT Certifications.

With staff present in support seated in the back of the meeting room, Fire & Rescue Chief James Bonzano and Jane Meadows explained the department’s request to add EMT base salary bonuses for various response staff EMT certifications. As a going-on-10-year cardiac arrest survivor shocked back to life by F&R Company 1 EMTs (thanks for the assist, Paula), this photographer/reporter says give them what they want – it may pay off for you and yours some day if that first crew is out on call, that more staff is certified in life-saving techniques.

Cullers continued to point out that the supervisors had more control over county departmental budgets like Fire & Rescue or the EDA, the latter also present Tuesday, August 9 (seeking the board to authorize compensation to EDA board members for the monthly meetings they conduct in furtherance of community economic development), than the supervisors do over the Public Schools budget. Cullers compared the supervisors’ ability to approve or deny specific staff-related financing items as were brought to them by Fire & Rescue and the EDA that evening, versus the County funding of public schools where a total budget is presented for approval as the new fiscal year approaches. After that supervisors approval of the total budget, internal adjustments to that budget can be pursued by the Warren County Public School Board and administrative staff. Cullers and her board have appeared especially skeptical of proposed school system transfers of previous fiscal year reserves between departmental or operational uses.

“That’s why we have looked at things, tried to categorize them, so that if we give money that’s supposed to go for a particular pay scale, it has to stay there and be used for that pay scale and not be pulled and put somewhere else. We’re trying to protect your salaries, not take away from it,” Cullers told the public school system contingent present.

Board of Supervisors Chair Cheryl Cullers, right, attempted to assure public school system employees present that teacher salaries and jobs were not at risk in cuts suggested to the proposed $71.1 million Public School budget despite evidence to the contrary in the agenda packet on the matter. Delores Oates, above left, also explained the board’s consideration of Capital Improvement Project debt and debt service in its review of the school’s operational budget proposal. Below, school system employees discuss what they heard versus what they saw in the agenda packet following the board’s convening to closed session.

However, with the new liaison group’s agenda summary pages before them, Cullers verbal assurances were received with some skepticism following the 7:24 p.m. adjournment of the 6 p.m. work session. One employee who raised their hand to ask permission to react to Cullers verbal assurances versus what was on paper in front of them, was not allowed by Chairman Cullers to speak. This reporter’s lengthy experience with municipal work sessions has been that unscheduled public input has generally been allowed within stated parameters at the chairman’s discretion. In fact, work sessions have often been seen by local municipal boards as a means to allow more direct give and take between the public and their elected officials than meeting rules generally allow. However, the current board of supervisors chair has been consistent in not allowing people not on the agenda to offer input at work sessions.

North River Supervisor and County-Schools Liaison Committee member Delores Oates also noted that the supervisors were taking into consideration coming and past public schools Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) and related debt and debt service, as they consider the Public School System’s FY-2022/23 Operational Budget. But rather than ease school employees minds, that mingling of CIP debt service as a factor in approaching and justifying reductions in the school system’s operational budget request seemed to add to the post-work session employee anxiety. Were future operational budgets going to be limited by past or current board decisions to build new or renovate aging school facilities, some wondered as they headed for the WCGC parking lot.
Supervisor Oates noted that the new BOS-WCPS liaison group would meet again this Thursday, August 11 for further discussion of the FY-23 public schools budget proposal. According to county administrative staff no date has yet been set for a vote of approval of the FY-2022/23 public school budget. One school staffer leaving the government center Tuesday evening asserted that Warren County was the only public school system in Virginia without an approved budget nearly six weeks into the fiscal year. – “We are a laughing stock,” they observed of the county’s ongoing unresolved public school budget.

See the full work session discussion of its four agenda items, including a recommendation on abandonment for now of Old Oak Lane Phases 4 and 5 projects by the newly appointed Shenandoah Farms Advisory Committee’s Chairman Bruce Boyle, in the Aug. 9 County Work Session video. That Farms Advisory Committee recommendation in favor of more cost-effective projects servicing more residents vehicular trips appears to go against the board and sanitary district staff’s plan to continue with the Old Oak Lane projects despite huge cost increases and the minimal number of residences, eight, directly impacted.

Shenandoah Farms Advisory Committee Chairman Bruce Boyle makes his committee’s case against proceeding at this time with the Old Oak Ln. Phase 4 and 5 projects amid skyrocketing costs Sanitary District residents would appear to be responsible for covering.

Following the work session, the supervisors adjourned to closed session to discuss personnel matters related to the newly appointed five-member Farms Advisory Committee. It was a closed-door discussion of which the Farms Advisory Committee chairman appeared to have no previous notice or knowledge.