The York County School Board passed an amended $126.5 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year Monday despite an uncertain situation concerning the funding it will receive from Richmond and a smaller than requested funding contribution from York County.
The need to amend the budget originally arose when the York County Board of Supervisors voted May 6 to provide YCSD with about $2 million less than requested.
The amended budget preserved much of a proposed pay raise for both licensed and non-licensed staff, however other requests for technology infrastructure and a move to a 13-year textbook replacement cycle from the current 20-year cycle did not make it into the amended budget.
The school board is still facing an uncertain funding contribution from Richmond. The state typically passes its budget in early February, however the state budget situation remains unresolved. Republicans in the House of Delegates and Democrats in the Virginia Senate and governor’s office are at odds over whether to expand Medicaid in Virginia. The Republicans have said they will not approve a budget with the expansion, while Democrats say they will not approve one without it.
That stalemate means there is still no budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.
“The worst-case scenario is if they don’t approve a budget and get into fall and all school divisions are open and [teacher] contracts are issued and we still don’t have state revenue,” YCSD Chief Financial Officer Dennis Jarrett said at Monday’s meeting. “Then it becomes a cash-flow issue. There comes a point where cash flow doesn’t keep up with expenditures. Early December is the deadline. That’s a very dire situation. I want to believe that would never happen in Virginia.”
Jarrett said by passing the amended budget Monday, the board was “taking a leap of faith” the state would produce a budget before painful decisions needed to be made next school year. Were the board not to adopt a budget, YCSD would cease operations July 1.
Further complicating the issue is a revenue problem in Richmond. Jarrett said Virginia Secretary of Finance Ric Brown announced last week a more than $300 million decline in revenues collected for the current fiscal year over what was projected during the budgeting process.
Jarrett said the revenue shortfall appears likely to continue into the next two fiscal years, meaning the loss of almost $1 billion of revenue from the state. Because the state provides almost half of YCSD’s funding, any loss in revenue could spell further funding cuts to the division.
“We’re hearing the reductions would be significant enough that it would be very difficult to exempt public education,” Jarrett told the board at Monday’s meeting.
The school board may need to amend the budget once again when Richmond manages to approve a new budget for the fiscal year which takes the revenue shortfalls into account.
The issue of compensation has been a major factor in budget talks for the upcoming fiscal year, which runs from July 1 through the end of June 2015. YCSD originally proposed a new pay plan for licensed staff along with a new step increase in pay for both licensed and non-licensed staff along with restoring a step lost by those two pools of employees during the past five years, when the step scale has been frozen.
The amended budget maintains the new pay plan along with the step increase for both groups. The restored step, however, is replaced by an across the board pay raise of .8 percent for licensed staff and 1 percent for non-licensed staff. The plan offers the equivalent of a 3 percent raise for all YCSD employees.
During Monday’s meeting, the school board added two new items to the budget before passing it: opening the eligibility for a funding supplement for national board certified teachers to all teachers in the division and increasing the supplements paid to special education teachers and paraeducators who work with students in the communication and behavioral support classrooms.
Also in the amended budget are a series of cuts proposed at a May 19 work session, including three full-time IT positions, one full-time HVAC position and equipment, a replacement school bus, one full-time position in human resources and a part-time guidance counselor.
Find more information about YCSD’s budget here.
Related Coverage:
- York School Board Plans 3 Percent Raise for All Employees, Cuts $2.1 Million from Budget
- York School Board Stresses Importance of Compensation Increase Despite Diminished Revenue
- York Supervisors Approve Budget; Taxes Remain Level to Leave YCSD Short About $2 Million
- York Supes: No Tax Rate Increase; One-Time Cash Infusion Could Help YCSD Budget Woes
- YCSD Superintendent: Supervisors Have ‘Grossly Oversimplified’ School Budget Issues
- York School Board’s Robert George Calls Out Supervisor Thomas Shepperd Over Budget Remarks
- YCSD Employees, Parents Rally for Higher Taxes at York County Budget Hearing
- York Supervisors: No Tax Rate Increase; Schools Need to Prioritize
- Parents, Teachers Talk YCSD Budget Issues at Community Meeting
- 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
