YCSD School Board Notes - May 2014

The School Board met on Monday, May 19 in a work session to discuss adjustments to the School Board proposed budget. Although the Board of Supervisors increased funding to our schools by $880,000, this contribution was more than $2 million less than the funding requested by the School Board. This requires us to reduce our School Board proposed budget by this amount.

A majority of Board members reached agreement at our recent work session on the parameters for the operating budget for FY2015, which starts on July 1. We plan to adopt our budget no sooner than our meeting at 6:00 p.m. on Monday, June 2. Assuming that the state has not approved a budget by that date, we would need to make additional revisions based on the level of funding the state provides.

This email sets forth a summary of what the Board is currently considering.

In comparison with our current budget, the largest new expenditure would be an investment of more than $2.4 million in compensation:

• We would award a step to all eligible licensed and non-licensed staff members. Movement from one step to another, usually, but does not always, result in an increase in pay. Additionally, the increase between steps varies. This action is positive because staff members have not received a step increase in each of the last five years.
• We would implement a new pay plan for teachers and licensed staff members. In comparison with the current pay plans of eight local school divisions, the new plan would rank in the top one third. This new pay plan involves an average increase in the value of a step of .79 of one percent. Recognize that this is an average: some steps do not increase at all, while others increase more than this amount.
• We would implement an across the board pay increase for licensed and non-licensed staff members of .80 and 1.00, respectively. The increases would vary for these two groups because of differences in other aspects of the compensation changes. The average increase of the changes for both groups would be 3%. A breakdown of the compensation plan is provided on the budget page of our division website.

The next largest additional expenditure (more than $1.9 million) would pertain to state-required expenses relating to the Virginia Retirement System (VRS). There would be a related additional expenditure of $76,000 to increase employee salaries by one tenth of a percent in order to hold employees harmless from payroll deductions related to new VRS requirements.

The plan would pass on savings in health insurance expenditures to employees by decreasing premiums paid by employees by an average of approximately 3%.

The plan would include $560,000 to address rising student enrollment and special education mandates. It also would add the equivalent of 2 School Counselors (1.5 of which are restorations of cuts in recent years) and a third Social Worker for the division (which would provide a Social Worker to student ratio of 1 to 4,140; still understaffed in comparison to other divisions in the region.)

One reason we would be able to make these additional expenditures is that our plan includes more than $1.8 million of cuts and savings from our current budget.

Because our schools will not receive the level of funding from the Board of Supervisors that was requested by the School Board, our plan omits several important items that were included in the proposed budget we sent to the County. For example, it would no longer include an additional $765,000 to maintain our basic technology infrastructure. It also would not restore $300,000 to return to a 13-year textbook replacement cycle.

The plan also would omit an expenditure of almost $523,000 for compensation above and beyond the $2.4 million+ compensation increase that remains in the plan. The original School Board Proposed Budget included an increase on average of 3.61% for licensed staff and 4.0% for non-licensed staff. Our revised plan includes an increase on average of 3.00% for both licensed and non-licensed staff members. While we would have preferred to do more, our plan continues to prioritize compensation.

A list of the Expenditure Adjustments in the FY 15 School Operating Budget as compared to the current budget is available on the budget page of the division website. The budget page also includes a document that sets forth the Expenditure Adjustments to the School Board Proposed Budget.

School Board members appreciate the input you have provided regarding our budget and invite you to provide any additional input you have. Contact information is available via this link.

Thank you for your support of our students, schools, and school division.

Mark Medford
School Board Chair
On Behalf of the York County School Board