Public opinion won the day on two contentious issues as School Board members finalized an $844.6 million budget last week.
The new spending package, approved last Thursday, is up 2.2% from the fiscal year ending June 30. It includes funding for continuing the Integration Station early-childhood program and retaining library aides as full-time positions.
“We listened,” said Board member Bethany Zecher Sutton, joining her four colleagues in supporting the spending package.
The initial budget proposal had called for shuttering The Integration Station, which provides instruction and support to youth with developmental disabilities in partnership with The Children’s School. Library aide positions, meanwhile, were slated to become part-time posts.
Arlington Public Schools leadership walked back both proposals as the budget process unfolded. Parents of Integration Station students were informed in April that the program was safe for the coming school year.
“We learned along the way about the impact some cuts would have,” Board member Zuraya Tapia-Hadley said before the budget-adoption vote. “We achieved a balance.”
Board member Miranda Turner said that “we really put everything on the table” for discussion and evaluation.
“We are all proud of the admittedly imperfect but rigorous result,” she said.
Virginia school boards do not have independent taxing authority. In Arlington, about 80% of operating funds are provided by the County Board as part of a revenue-sharing agreement.
The county government’s $565.2 million funding transfer will be less than school leaders had desired. But given current economic unease, School Board members avoided casting blame on their County Board colleagues.
“It’s such an incredibly tight budget year,” said School Board member Kathleen Clark. “We can’t just pick up the phone and call our friends in the county government — that money isn’t there.”
The budget process was the last for Mary Kadera, who is chairing the Board in the 2024-25 school year and is not seeking re-election.
“We’ve taken it extremely seriously,” Kadera said of the budget process.
Still, Danielle Jones, vice president of the Arlington Education Association, said the budget was adopted without a key collective-bargaining agreement in place.
“We haven’t finished bargaining yet,” Jones told Board members, going on to criticize school-system leadership.
The same state law that four years ago allowed localities to establish collective-bargaining agreements with personnel also made any agreement “subject to appropriation.” If a jurisdiction doesn’t have the money to fund the deal, it can reopen negotiations.
Jones suggested county school leaders have used that loophole to take advantage of their employees.
“Bargaining isn’t about APS dictating terms. Real bargaining involves give and take,” Jones said. “It’s about cooperation, not control.”
The new budget includes some staffing reductions, both at schools and in administrative offices. School leaders have expressed hope that many of those affected by cuts will be able to find options among currently open positions.
APS personnel will also receive bonuses of $500 or $1,000 this month. Full-time employees will receive the higher amount, while part-time workers will receive the lesser figure.
Slightly more than half the $5.8 million cost required to fund the one-time payments will come from the state government, while the rest comes from the school system’s budget.
Budget adoption was initially scheduled to take place on May 1, but it was deferred two weeks to allow the state government to finalize its own budget amendments and determine how much funding would be funneled to the local level.
The Fiscal Year 2026 budget takes effect July 1.
