(Updated at 11:05 a.m.) Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Francisco Durán has proposed a 2024-2025 budget that he says avoids new expenses in a lean fiscal year compounded by state funding uncertainty.
He presented an $824.7 million budget — which increases the current budget by $12.2 million, or 1.5% — to the Arlington School Board last week.
The superintendent said his budget includes a $29.5 million gap, in part because APS could lose some $5.7 million in state funding. These come from cuts Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed in his budget for preschool, tutoring and compensation supplements.
“Here’s the bottom line: with everything I’ve shared, with the revenues that I have provided, the cuts that we have done, the expenditures that I’ve outlined [excepting staffing changes tied to enrollment, a part-time custodian and $100,000 for a new student safety software] are not new expenditures,” Durán said during his presentation on Thursday night. “Everything else is currently things that we’re maintaining and sustaining.”
In the best-case scenario, the nearly $30 million gap would drop to $5 million with a 2.5 cent tax rate increase and a competing state budget proposed in the Virginia senate that would send $11 million to APS. The Arlington County Board authorized hearings on a 2.5 cent tax rate increase in large part to address funding gaps if Youngkin’s budget is approved.
“This is not the budget that any of us want to be presenting,” said Board Vice-Chair David Priddy, who read comments from Chair Cristina Diaz-Torres, who could not attend the meeting. “At best, this maintains the status quo of APS, but we know the status quo is not sufficient for our students, for our staff or for our community.”
Youngkin’s conservative budget comes despite a recent report from the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission, which found Virginia gives less funding to schools than the national average, using outdated models from the Great Recession, Durán noted.
On top of this statewide deficiency, APS receives less funding from the state, says School Board member Mary Kadera. State funding accounts for 29% and 27%, respectively, of the budgets for the public school systems in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, compared to 15% for APS, she said.
To mitigate the gap, the budget includes some $21 million in cuts. Durán axed $15.7 million in Central Office expenses and reduced staffing by 38 full-time equivalent positions: 19 in the Central Office, of which four are vacant ($2.7 million) and 19.8 school-based art, music and PE positions ($2.15 million).
This change corrects outdated planning calculations without increasing class sizes or impacting classroom instruction, per Durán’s presentation.
“There may be ways in which we can do better with this year’s budget, even with the challenging numbers just presented,” School Board member Miranda Turner said. “I very much appreciate that you focus cuts on… Central Office and not within the schools, but we need to compare the proposed position cuts… We have essentially the same number of positions being cut in Central Office, several of which are vacant anyway.”
Durán says APS began the budget process with a much larger, $73.4 million gap, largely due to the use of $53.7 million in one-time funding in the current budget. Most of this sum was used to make salaries more competitive with surrounding jurisdictions.
For the 2024-2025 budget, Durán proposes $17 million in step increases and a cost-of-living adjustment, which could be augmented by the 3% compensation increase included in the state Senate’s proposed budget. (Youngkin’s plan includes a 2% salary increase for teachers, per the Virginia Mercury.)
The APS proposal disheartened June Prakash, the leader of the local teachers union, the Arlington Education Association.
“APS is not matching the county [cost of living adjustments] and 1% does not allow employees to keep up with inflation,” she said in an email after the presentation. “Our employees are some of the hardest working I have ever known, and they deserve so much more. They deserve a wage where they can thrive, and now many of them can barely survive. One job should be enough.”
She noted an across-the-board 1% increase is not equitable, saying such an increase for licensed staff is not the same as for support staff.
Durán’s presentation outlined several steps APS has taken in recent budgets to improve teacher compensation, which Diaz-Torres echoed in her statement.
“In the last several years, we’ve taken important steps in trying to right size our system to the challenge we’ve invested in compensation for our staff and have attempted to do right by the employees who stuck with us despite a decade of inconsistent compensation increases,” per her comments, read by Priddy.
Had APS budgeted better for compensation increases in previous years, it still would have to spend more today than it needed to in decades past, mused Kadera. Like other school systems, APS now has to spend more to meet more community expectations, from drug education to mental health support.
“Even if enrollment had held steady over the past 10 years and even if we built in market competitive salaries for our staff, due to all the factors I’ve just described, and more our financial needs would increase,” she said. “None of what I have said tonight absolves us of our responsibility to operate as strategically and efficiently as possible and in ways that align with our values and priorities.”
There will be a public hearing on the school budget March 14. After two work sessions, the School Board will propose its budget on April 11, followed by a public hearing on April 23. Board members are expected to adopt a budget on May 9.