During the weekdays Benjamin Payson works as a teacher at Bruton High School, but at night and on the weekends he spends his time coaching, giving ghost tours and working at the College of William & Mary Book Store.
Payson said he must work the extra jobs to make enough money to stay afloat amid climbing healthcare costs and other expenses.
“I don’t know who has got to do it or what’s going to do it, but who is going to convince Wally [York County Supervisor Walt Zaremba] and his gang that we have to have more?” Payson asked.
He brought clothing from each of those jobs to a budget meeting Thursday at Bruton where school board office officials and York County School Board member Barbara Haywood shared with a handful of parents and teachers what Haywood called “the predicament we’re in as a board”: There is not enough money in the proposed budget from York County to fund what the schools have identified as their most urgent needs.
The heart of the problem, according to school staff and board members, lies in the budget proposal from York County Administrator James McReynolds for the upcoming fiscal year. That proposal allocates $880,000 in additional funding over what the division received in the current fiscal year, leaving a gulf of slightly more than $2 million between McRenyolds’ proposal and the budget they say handles their most urgent needs.
“$880,000 is insulting,” Payson said. “I don’t know how much longer we can hold out.”
Another teacher said YCSD is a division “I love with all my heart” and that she has in the past “watched people stay and not get raises because they love this division and we know we’re going to get through this together and we’ll be stronger for it on the other side.” But she warned the sentiment was shifting, noting there has been “a lot of talk” about teachers leaving for other districts.
“There’s a point where push comes to shove,” she said.
Chief among the urgent needs is a 3 percent pay raise for YCSD staff, Haywood said at Thursday’s meeting. YCSD staff received a 2 percent pay raise last year, punctuating four straight years without a raise.
“One of the things we’ve done over the last few years has been to freeze salaries because of a lack of funding,” Haywood said. “We can’t do that anymore. The board started off this budget process feeling as though number one, we’re going to take care of salaries as much as we can and however we can do that. We were unanimous on making that stance.”
YCSD Superintendent Eric Williams pointed to statistics that show starting salaries for YCSD teachers with master’s degrees, who make up about half the workforce of teachers in the division, are in the bottom third among local school systems.
“Obviously [compensation] isn’t the whole story for attracting and retaining great staff, but we need to have sufficient compensation,” Williams said. “We’re nowhere near the school board’s goal of being in the top third for compensation [among local school systems].”
McReynolds said in March that if the York County Board of Supervisors is going to increase its funding allocation to YCSD beyond the $880,000, the property tax rate would need to be raised. Because of the time necessary to advertise a potential rate increase, the supervisors must decide by April 9 whether they are going to consider raising the tax rate, leaving one remaining work session on Tuesday for them to consider such a move. A decision to consider raising the rate is not a guarantee of a rate increase.
Williams said other urgent needs include $300,000 to restore textbook funding to levels that allow books to be replaced once every 13 years. Budget cuts in recent years have pushed the division to replacing books once every 20 years. He also pointed to $765,000 in new technology spending to maintain existing servers and networks and $442,000 to hire eight new teachers to handle a projected increase of 190 students in the division next year.
In addition to those costs, the division is required by state law to shell out an additional $2,009,464 to the Virginia Retirement System.
“Based off of [McReynolds’ proposal], we’re going to have to make cuts,” Haywood said. She said those cuts could be felt in the form of increased student-to-teacher ratios.
“This is insulting,” she added.
Williams presented figures that show York County is considered by the state one of the most capable municipalities in the area for funding its schools yet it spends less than any other school system per student. The $9,637 per student mark falls thousands of dollars short of other school systems, including Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools, which spends $11,123 per student.
“We’re incredibly cost effective,” Williams said. “Is frugality a good thing? Sure. But when we say we have additional financial needs, we have a lot of credibility because we’re spending fewer dollars.”
The school board voted last month to pass the budget proposed by Williams, which assumes the county will fund YCSD’s entire request. The supervisors are scheduled to pass a budget May 6, at which point the school board may have to revisit its budget as it did last year after receiving $1.8 million less than requested.
Haywood expressed her frustration at the supervisors not accepting a request from the school board to have a second joint work session. The two boards met in February for a meeting that began at 6 p.m., however it had to be adjourned by 6:55 p.m. to allow the supervisors to hold public hearings scheduled for that night. The school board asked for a second joint work session when they passed their budget, however the supervisors have not accepted their request.
“We offered multiple dates [for the two boards to meet for a second joint work session],” Williams said.
YCSD has devoted a page on its website to providing information on its budget process. The full presentations given by Williams to community members at this week’s budget meetings are available there, as well as more detailed numbers, including the complete budget as passed by the school board.
The school board is accepting comments on the budget situation at [email protected].
The board of supervisors will meet for a work session at 6 p.m. Tuesday at York Hall where they will have to decide whether to consider a tax rate increase. That meeting is open to the public, though there will not be a chance for the public to speak because it is a work session and not a regular meeting,
Related Coverage:
- York Supervisors Face Impending Deadline on Whether to Consider Tax Rate Increase
- York School Board to Supervisors: Fund Our ‘Needs-Based’ Budget
- Proposed York Budget Keeps Taxes Level, Offers 3 Percent Raise for Employees
- York School Board Continues Work on Budget Despite Uncertainty About Local, State Funding Contributions
- York Superintendent’s Proposed Budget Asks County for 5.8 Percent Funding Increase
