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Friday, February 10, 2012

Fairfax County School Board Approves Advertised FY 2013 Budget

The Fairfax County School Board has adopted the FY 2013 Advertised Budget of $2.4 billion, an increase of 8.9 percent, or $200.6 million, from the FY 2012 Approved Budget. The FY 2013 budget includes 741.3 new positions, most of which are being added to address membership growth—projected to be 181,608 in FY 2013—and student demographic changes. Extended learning time for students and extended time for teachers are included in the budget, as are compensation increases for employees.

In its passage of the Advertised Budget, the School Board incorporated Superintendent Jack Dale’s Proposed Budget and approved several additions:

Eliminating student athletic fees at a cost of $1.7 million, with the funding to be provided from other budget reductions from options identified by the Superintendent and presented to the Board by April.

• Providing 20 field custodian positions at a cost of $1 million and reducing funding for replacement equipment by $1 million.
•  Creating a placeholder of $200,000 to fund a consultant study of the Food and Nutrition Services program to identify cost-effective ways of making FCPS school food healthier, with the funding to be redirected within the Food and Nutrition Services fund.
• Providing funding of $100,000 for a best practices study to be overseen by an early education working group that will be established to assess, improve, and expand early education services in order to increase early literacy skills and kindergarten readiness for all children, with the funding to be provided from other budget reductions from options identified by the Superintendent and presented to the Board by April.
• Creating a placeholder of $600,000 in the School Board Office budget to provide increased School Board member staff to improve constituent electronic communications, provide ombudsman-type constituent support, and establish a School Board auditor position, with the specifics to be determined by the Board prior to the final budget vote in May, and with funding to be provided from reductions in other central office administrative costs from options identified by the Superintendent and presented to the Board by April.
• Providing funding of up to $100,000 to revise and reproduce the Parent Advocacy Handbook for electronic and hard copy distribution, with funding to be provided through the reallocation of existing funds in Instructional Services, Special Services, and/or Communications and Community Outreach.
• Providing funding of $19,590 to record (audio and video) all School Board work sessions of the full Board, including Forums, with the funding to be provided from other budget reductions from options identified by the Superintendent and presented to the Board by April.

Additionally, the School Board directed staff to present an eCART program evaluation, conduct a comprehensive survey of teachers and other eCART users, and make identified improvements before or in conjunction with any expansion of eCART or allocation of additional funds to the program.

FCPS is projecting an increase of more than 3,900 students for the 2012-13 school year. Since FY 2008, the district’s enrollment has grown by more than 15,000 students. The majority of the budget (85.9 percent), and the majority of positions (94.6 percent) are directed to instructional programs.  

This fall, FCPS will open two new schools: a middle school at the South County site and an elementary school at the Lacey site.

To enable FCPS to stay competitive, the School Board approved a 2 percent market scale adjustment and a step increase for all eligible employees, as well as a salary adjustment for custodian positions, which are being reclassified to market level.  

The FY 2013 Advertised Budget includes the addition of 26 positions to address large class sizes and 12 positions to support the expansion of the World Languages program in elementary schools. Eight schools will add the Foreign Languages in the Elementary Schools (FLES) program, and two new schools will implement the Foreign Language Immersion program. These schools will be determined in the spring of 2012. Expansion of the program supports the Fairfax County School Board’s Student Achievement Goal 1.2. 

The budget also includes funds to expand Pathways to the Baccalaureate, part of the College Success program, to four additional schools—Centreville, Chantilly, South County, and Westfield High Schools—and to expand the program to 10^th and 11^th grades at Annandale, Edison, Falls Church, Lee, Mount Vernon, South Lakes, and Stuart High Schools and Hayfield Secondary School. The program works to develop college readiness and provide ongoing support to students who enroll in Northern Virginia Community College with the intent of transferring to a four-year Virginia college to earn a bachelor’s degree. Fairfax, Herndon, Marshall, and West Potomac High Schools also offer the College Success program.      

The FY 2013 Advertised Budget includes an increase in state funding due to increasing enrollment and the state’s update to the Local Composite Index, however, federal revenue is decreasing due to the loss of one-time Federal Education Jobs funding. 

FCPS receives the majority of its funding from Fairfax County and this year will request an increase of 8.4 percent over FY 2012. The projected cost per pupil for FY 2013 will be $13,645, an increase of 6.4 percent over FY 2012. As determined by the Washington Area Boards of Education (WABE), FCPS ranks fifth among 10 area school systems in cost per pupil and has the lowest percentage of leadership team and management positions in relation to total positions of all Washington area school systems for FY 2012.

For complete information on the FCPS FY 2013 budget, including the budget calendar, visit http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/index.shtml.