Despite enrollment that remains below pre-COVID levels and is expected to be flat year-over-year, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) officials will be seeking $301.8 million more in fiscal 2025, most of which would be put toward compensation increases.
Superintendent Michelle Reid on Feb. 25 presented to the School Board a proposed $3.8 billion budget that is 8.6 percent higher than the one approved for fiscal 2024.
The budget would boost all employees’ pay by 6 percent and continue a 2-percent compensation supplement approved by the General Assembly, which took effect Jan. 1.
Those pay hikes would cost $170.7 million and $55.3 million, respectively.
“We want to prioritize competitive compensation for all of our staff members, regardless of their role in the division,” Reid said.
Reid is seeking a $254 million (10.5 percent) increase in the transfer from the Fairfax County government. Officials expect revenue from the state to rise $42.2 million compared with fiscal 2024 and that federal revenues – a mere 1.3 percent of the budget – will go up by $2.3 million.
The school system’s leaders anticipate state revenue will be higher than projected, which would result in a reduced county-transfer request, Reid said.
The budget also seeks $7.1 million more for multi-year programs, including:
• $2.1 million more for inclusive preschool classrooms.
• $1.9 million for the final year of a three-year environmental program supporting carbon neutrality and electric buses.
• $1.1 million for fine- and performing-arts initiatives.
• $800,000 more to offer boys’ volleyball and girls’ wrestling at the high-school level.
• $700,000 to update and fully automate FCPS workflow systems.
• $600,000 to support the second year of a five-year program to provide one additional certified athletic trainer at all of FCPS’s 25 high schools.
FCPS has 199 schools and centers and about 25,750 full-time employees. Officials estimate the school system will have about 181,700 students in fiscal year 2025, a figure approximately equal to this year’s enrollment.
The school system had roughly 189,000 students before the pandemic struck in March 2020.
School Board member Mateo Dunne (Mount Vernon District) noted that about 40 percent of FCPS’s student body is economically disadvantaged and nearly 30,000 pupils are in special education – “it’s a vastly different population than it was even 20 years ago” – but acknowledged the School Board must be able to assure the public that FCPS is maximizing return on tax dollars.
“I can’t say that to my constituents today,” Dunne said. “I can’t say that FCPS is as efficient as humanly possible . . . Fairfax County used to be the best in the world and it can be again. But we have to be honest about that journey and be willing to change and ask tough questions.”
School Board member Kyle McDaniel (At-Large) said FCPS’s funding requests have been rising steeply and said the pattern was “unsustainable.” But the needs of the school system’s students also are rising on an increased slope, he said.
“Our job as elected officials is to balance both of these things in a fiscally disciplined manner . . . to make sure that we are squeezing every penny that we have,” while recognizing the school system’s changing needs, McDaniel said. “We’re at an inflection point. This cannot continue.”
FCPS already operates efficiently, said School Board member Rachna Sizemore Heizer (Braddock District). But Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance president Arthur Purves said FCPS lately has been spending more and teaching less.
“Over the past five years, per-student cost [has been] increasing, from $16,000 to $21,000, while SAT scores are falling, from 1218 to 1181,” he said. “Never in half a century have FCPS SAT scores seen such a precipitous decline.”
Fairfax County Executive Bryan Hill will present his proposed fiscal 2025 budget to the Board of Supervisors Feb. 20 and then wrangling will begin to reconcile Hill’s suggested school transfer with the (no doubt larger) one sought by FCPS officials.
Supervisors will hold budget public hearings April 16 through 18, mark up the budget April 3 and adopt the final package May 7. Fiscal 2025 starts July 1.
