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Trying to improve salaries while dealing with the financial impact of lower enrollment is among the challenges facing Rockbridge County school officials and leaders as budget season arrives in earnest.
As usual, local school officials also don’t know what funding to expect from the state this year as legislators battle it out in the General Assembly.
The Rockbridge County School Board and the Board of Supervisors met together Jan. 19 to discuss the district’s budget picture as it looks now.
As the school system’s financial advisory committee has worked to develop the FY24 budget, the members have been particularly dismayed by the state-projected Average Daily Membership (ADM) for the district. ADM essentially accounts for the number of students that are physically sitting in desks. The current FY23 budget was established on a state-projected ADM of 2,298. For FY24, the state-projected ADM is 2,145.
“We’ve talked to a lot of other local school divisions in our area and around the state, and there seems to be a lot of varying estimates going around – some are too high and some are too low,” said the division’s chief business officer, Jason Kirby. “We feel like this is way too low of an estimate for us, so right now we’re building our budget off of 2,220, and we feel comfortable with that right now. We get regular reports of where our ADM approximately is and we feel comfortable with 2,220 as a conservative estimate for next year.”
Kirby attributes RCPS’ declining ADM to Covid, mask mandates, large graduating classes, and other issues that the district has encountered in the years following Covid.
“Having said that, we do need to begin adjusting for these lower ADM numbers [and plan] accordingly,” he said in his presentation to the boards.
Kirby advised that when evaluating the FY24 budget, both boards should consider salaries for professional and classified staff, health insurance, and safety and mental health.
Rockbridge County Public Schools has been having difficulties recruiting and retaining classified employees – bus drivers, custodians, food service employees, and instructional assistants. Their pay rates are being outbid by local competitors offering $15 an hour as opposed to RCPS’ $13 per hour, Kirby explained. Increasing their rates to $15 would cost the district $243,000 in total.
Additionally, to earn a state compensation supplement of $1,023,967 and to match competitive local rates, Kirby recommended increasing teacher salaries by 5 percent.
He said, “We’re trying to keep pace with all the surrounding school divisions. Last year, we gave 5 percent. Unfortunately, many of [the other districts] gave 6, 7, 8 [percent] – there was even a division that gave 10 percent! While we’re trying to stay competitive, we need to focus on this as much as possible, so that when we’re recruiting and trying to retain our current teachers we have comparable salaries.”
RCPS would spend $1.2 million increasing teacher salaries by 5 percent.
David McDaniel, chair of the Board of Supervisors, said he appreciated the plan to increase teacher salaries, but expressed some apprehension in terms of budget expenditures.
“I think it’s important for both boards to be in communication with our legislators over the next couple of months,” he said. “When legislators say they’re going to give a 10 percent raise, too often do they fail to tell the public that’s only for half of the staff. The state’s only giving 25 percent with the locality paying 75 percent. It’s not as encouraging as it seems coming out of Richmond.”
Understanding these concerns, Kirby calculated the district’s savings after considering resignations and retirements at the conclusion of this school year. With a decreasing ADM, the administration does not feel pressure to refill these positions, which could save the system $250,000.
Kirby also expects the district to retain funds that would typically be used toward employee health care. Prior to the 2022-2023 school year, RCPS entered a health insurance plan with Aetna. It was able to negotiate a credit of $250,000 with a 13.5 percent rate increase for the 2023-2024 school year.
“The negotiated credit will allow us to move forward with an approximate [maximum increase of] $140,000 … that will be extremely helpful this year,” Kirby explained to the boards. However, knowing that these benefits will not apply for the 2024-2025 year, he wants to be mindful of budgeting for this credit and other insurancerelated increases for the FY25 year.
Going forward into the FY24 academic year, RCPS leaders want to pay extra attention to the mental health and safety of students. Last year, RCPS implemented an Alternative Placement Program at Rockbridge County High School, providing academic and emotional support to struggling students. The program caters to students who are behaviorally challenged, learn in an untraditional classroom setting, or have greater emotional and social needs.
With the success of the alted program at the high school, School Board members are advocating for its expansion.
“We’ve seen very promising results from our alternative education program that’s been started at RCHS. They’re doing great things for kids there. We’re hoping to expand that program to the middle school,” Kirby said.
Currently, there is one teacher’s assistant at Maury River Middle School covering alt-ed courses. Thompson and the School Board would like to hire two additional teachers that are well qualified and would make promising assets to the MRMS program. Hiring the two teachers would cost the district approximately $140,000. The school administration believes that establishing a strong program at the middle school will eliminate the need for it at the high school by working with students sooner.
“We’re hoping that by expanding the program at the middle school that will hopefully diminish the need for the program at the high school,” Kirby said.
Kirby and the RCPS financial team will continue working on the budget and alter it as needed once they get more news from the state.
“We are hopeful that we will have a final budget in March, but we are dependent on when we receive numbers from the state,” Kirby told The News-Gazette.
In the meantime, the Rockbridge County School Board will hold a public hearing to gather input from the community on the FY24 budget. The hearing will be a part of the Board’s regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 14, at 5 p.m. and will be held at the Rockbridge County administration building.
