The fiscal year 2025 budget that the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors approved for the county’s school division this past spring included a shortfall of $46.8 million.
During a work session Monday night, the Spotsylvania School Board revealed some tangible effects of what its members consider underfunding from the supervisors.
Phillip Trayer, the division’s chief financial officer, reported that this year SCPS was forced to freeze 102 general education teacher equivalent positions to save $9.1 million of the disparity between what the school system needed and what the supervisors funded.
Trayer said monies were transferred from instruction to other categories that desperately needed the funds.
“These general education positions were not funded as appropriations were moved from the instruction lines to cover budgetary gaps in maintenance, utilities and [special education] contracted services,” Trayer said.
The division also lost 84 positions that were funded by the Elementary and Secondary School Education Relief (ESSER) fund.
The 84 employees were, however, provided an opportunity to remain with SCPS by filling other vacancies related to turnover.
In addition to the frozen positions, the division shaved $9.8 million of the gap by cutting funding needed for instructional improvement and student support; $5.4 million for compliance adjustments; $3.6 million in key critical improvements; $3.4 million for grants and restricted funds; $2.9 million for critical operational adjustments; $1.2 million in technology and business needs and $1.1 million in maintenance, transportation and safety; among other cuts.
While dealing with budgeting concerns, the school board is still seeking to reinforce its 2025-29 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), which requires bond and proffer support of more than $350 million to construct a new high school and elementary school along state routes 2 and 17 as well as expansion of Ni River Middle School.
Other major projects include relocating the Spotsylvania Career and Technical Center to expand capacity, repurposing the current center as a middle school and expanding space for special education.
The school board is proposing a revenue-sharing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the board of supervisors that it says will provide a percentage of general property and other local tax revenue to be transferred to the schools equal to pre-pandemic levels.
The MOU would not call for an increase in taxes, according to the division’s proposal, but would instead focus on allocation of existing revenue. School officials believe an MOU would provide a reliable source of funding, remove subjectivity from the budgeting process, eliminate conflict between the boards and allow the school board to present a balanced budget to the supervisors.
At Monday’s work session, division staff also released the results of a community budget survey that began Sept. 24 and ended Oct. 13.
Out of 1,081 responses, the majority (52%) came from parents and guardians of students. Students, staff and school board members made up 45% of the responses with 1.76% from other community members.
Staff lamented that the survey did not reach minority communities proportionately; 69% of the respondents are white. The Black and Hispanic populations each made up 5% or less of the responses, despite comprising 19.5% and 14% of the county’s population, respectively.
According to the survey’s results, the division’s highest priority should be competitive salaries to attract and retain high-quality teachers. The priorities were ranked 1 through 12. Reducing class size was the second-highest priority followed by competitive salaries for support staff, enhancing school safety and security, expanding academic support programs and increasing funding for student health and wellness.
Supporting after-school athletics and academic programs was the lowest priority.
The budget presentation also examined needs in special education and the English Language Learners (ELL) program. The division is seeing a continuous increase in students with disabilities and is enduring staffing shortages in licensed special education teachers.
The division is short 75 paraeducators: 31 to meet the state Standards of Quality (SOQ) for low-incidence programs, 37 to support elementary Autism classrooms and seven for public separate program additions.
Thirteen school psychologists are needed as well as 14 educational diagnosticians to support testing, case management and special education administrative designees. The special education department estimates that it will need an additional 7.5 classrooms each year for the next five years.
Immediate space concerns are being addressed by moving six modular classrooms to Lee Hill Elementary and four to Spotswood Elementary at a cost of $500,000 coming out of the fiscal year 2026 Capital Improvement Plan.
The division welcomed 261 more ELL students since last year. Projections indicate the upward trend will continue, and more ELL teachers will be required to meet the SOQ. A literacy coordinator for grades 6-12 and additional reading specialists are also required to support the implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act.
The budget presentation indicated that Spotsylvania has the lowest central administration staff levels in the region when compared to Fredericksburg, Stafford, Caroline, Culpeper and Prince William. The division has the fifth-lowest administration-to-student ratio in the state out of 131 localities. The Human Resources staff, which has a staff of just 16 to handle 3,592 full-time employees, represents the lowest ratio in the area.
The recommended ratio of social workers to students is one for every 250, while Spotsylvania has one for every 774.
The board tentatively plans to submit a draft of the FY2026 CIP to the county budget staff by Nov. 8. It plans to approve the 2026-2030 CIP budget at its Nov. 11 meeting and finalize an agenda to send to state legislators at that meeting as well.
The FY26 operational budget work session will be held on Nov. 18.
