Supervisors get mixed reaction from teachers after appropriation of additional $5.7 million of $6.9 million set aside for support of public schools budget

It was a mixed verdict in the wake of the Warren County Board of Supervisors (BOS) unanimous vote approving appropriation of $5,714,541 of what was termed “Supplemental Appropriation Items” into the Fiscal Year-2022/23 county public schools budget. A vote on appropriations to what has been cited as an FY-22/23 Warren County Public Schools budget of $71.1 million was added to the Tuesday evening, August 16, regular meeting agenda out of a Closed Session following a 5 p.m. supervisors work session. The closed session was to discuss legal and financial matters surrounding the WC EDA, not the school budget.

One of 10 public hearing speakers urging the board to fully fund the county public schools operational budget request. Initial gratitude for a $5.7 million appropriation for six basic requests eventually turned to disappointment that another $1.8 million for 37 specific ‘needed additions’ had been left unfunded, tho $1.2 million remained in the County’s reserve fund for the school budget. Below, shot of crowd, a large portion of which were educators there in support of full funding of the public school budget. However, Ryan Messinger, third seat in first fully pictured row, had a different message for the board – ‘Dissastisfied’ in its handling of the Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District.

What appeared to be 20+ people, including teachers and interested citizens in support of county public schools were present. Some had signed up to speak in support of the requested public schools budget at “Public Comments” on non-agenda items. A number of others were present to speak in support of recommendations by current and past Shenandoah Farms Advisory Boards to abandon at least temporarily the Phase 4 and 5 portions of the Old Oak Lane Capital Improvement Plan that the board and its Sanitary District manager seem determined so see through despite skyrocketing cost estimates that it appears Farms Sanitary District residents will be responsible to cover.

But on the school budget front, as first signed-up Public Comments speaker and secondary school teacher Amy Flora told the board, she had to reconsider her planned remarks in the wake of the board’s added agenda item action. Flora and others thanked the supervisors for the appropriation of the $5.7 million in support of teacher salaries, scheduled bonuses, filling of eight vacant positions, and funding of extra-curricular activities and athletics programs. However, as some absorbed what had been approved versus what had been on the table as potential additions or reductions to the original public schools budget proposal, some dissatisfaction emerged.

Warren County Education Association Secondary Education President Amy Flora thanked the board for its $5.7 million basic needs appropriation, but like other present wondered why another $1.2 million for additional positions and programs set aside in reserves wasn’t appropriated. Below, page 1 of a page-and-a-half of 37 ‘Potential Reductions’ are no longer potential – they are reduced from the schools budget.

And after follow-up discussion with both Supervisor and County-Schools Liaison Committee member Delores Oates and County Finance Director Matt Robertson on Wednesday, it appears the discontent revolves around a $1.2-million gap in that $5.7-million appropriation and $6.9 million the board had set aside in a County Reserve Fund to address additional needs in the public schools budget. Robertson noted he could not explain the difference between that $1.2 million in unappropriated funds and a $1.8 million cost estimate listed for 37 items presented by school officials at an August 9 supervisors work session on the schools budget.

But to the tune of $1.2 million or $1.8 million, the fact that those 37 items received none of the available reserve funds set aside for those additional requests did not sit well with those public school employees present at Tuesday’s meeting. In fact, when Flora, who serves as president of Secondary Education for the Warren County Education Association, returned to the Public Comments podium she told the supervisors that a poll conducted among system teachers indicated that 77% of respondents indicated they are considering leaving Warren County Public Schools for other public school systems they feel are more adequately funded on an annual basis.

There seemed to be a disconnect between  the board and its chair and teachers upset that English Language and Elementary Art teaching positions, along with Elementary School Counselors, Math Coaches, and a variety of Teaching Assistants and other requested positions had been ignored by the board despite available funds to support a significant portion of those requests.

After repeated imploring that those additional requested positions were much needed to reduce staffing shortages and a continued over-stretching of existing staff workloads, board Chair Cheryl Cullers, herself a former public schools nurse, reiterated that her board had never intended to not appropriate existing staff’s salary requests, including 5% STEP or COLA raises. She added that she believed she was elected to ask hard questions about budgets and assured public school staff present that they were not the only ones to be targeted with such questions, that county departments got the same treatment.

But that, that treatment might possibly lead to as many as 77% of current teachers to employment in public school systems elsewhere should be a matter of public concern for anyone, elected or otherwise, concerned for the future of the Warren County Public School system.

Following adjournment of the Public Comments the bulk of the educational community left the meeting room to discuss what had transpired in the Warren County Government Center meeting room. Those present deferred to Warren County Education Association Secondary Education President Flora for comment on the budget that was and was not approved.

“It’s not enough. The salaries are great but it kind of feels like it’s just to get us to stop talking, stop fighting. But we can’t because everything else that is on that budget is reasonable, it is needed, and it does not cost the County anything more than what the County paid last year, even in this time of inflation and rising gas prices. The fact that they don’t have to spend any extra money should be a no-brainer that they should fund us 100%. All of those positions are completely needed, it’s completely transparent. And we’re not going to stop fighting for those because we need it, these teachers need it. And again, that survey that we put out said 77% of teachers right now, are looking to leave Warren County Public Schools next year because of this whole process.

“So, for them to say that they are doing and they care about the public schools and teachers in Warren County – THAT is not the result of a County that cares. When 77% of our teachers are so concerned about this process that they’re considering leaving, that is not showing that they care,” Flora concluded without dispute from those teachers around her.

However, county officials assert that the flat funding claim from last year is not entirely accurate. During our Wednesday email conversation with County Finance Director Robertson and Supervisor Oates, at the end of a list of involved numbers, Robertson wrote: “After last night’s meeting, the total appropriation of local dollars to the School Division is $28,776,158. That is a total increase of $1,056,158 from the prior fiscal year.”

And for a fiscally conservative county board, whose chairman has bragged during this budget cycle that the current board majority elected three years ago on a reform platform related to the aftermath of the FR-WC EDA financial scandal, has yet to approve any tax increase to produce additional revenue, even during the above-mentioned inflationary economy, that reported $1.05-million increase in local funds to public schools might have set off alarm bells. Would adding another $1.2 million of available reserve funds threaten to break that string of no-tax increases in the next budget cycle?

Well, “you gotta do what you gotta do” as an old saying goes, or perhaps not – but at what risk?

I guess we’ll find out next year when the FY-2023/24 Warren County Public School budget is presented with a new number of teaching vacancies needing to be filled.

WCPS Superintendent Dr. Chris Ballenger went to the podium later to explain discrepancy in the number, 6 or 7, for a Consent Agenda item request for funding of purchase of new school buses. The $903,693 for 7 buses was unanimously approved after the item was removed from Consent Agenda for additional discussion. Hopefully, the school system won’t need some of those buses to transport teachers, cited at 77% considering leaving the system, to their next job out of county out of fear of future public school budget funding shortfalls.

Click here to see the entire meeting in the County VIDEO, including the often emotional post-schools budget vote Public Comments during which 15 people addressed that, among other issues. The “other” was primarily the seeming reluctance of the board and staff to follow Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District Advisory Board(s) recommendations concerning road Capital Improvement Project decisions, and consequences of the potential closing of Farms community property assets as plans to seek financial reimbursements from former advisors, the Property Owners of Shenandoah Farms (POSF), appears on the horizon. County Attorney Jason Ham explained the result of his research into a previous Circuit Court ruling that POSF was not by Virginia law a legal Property Owners Association due to a lack of corroborating evidence that all Shenandoah Farms property owners are required to be POSF members.