For Clint Mitchell’s first proposed budget as the Spotsylvania County superintendent, he’s relying on an approach similar to the one that he used successfully in Colonial Beach.
Colonial Beach’s school division consists of 600 students, while Spotsylvania educates more than 24,000.
But Mitchell was steadfast in his belief that building relationships is the key no matter the division size.
Accordingly, Mitchell advised Spotsylvania’s school board members to pair up with members of the board of supervisors for budget conversations that he hoped would create a less-combative atmosphere when the final budget is discussed and adopted.
While there is a $46.6 million gap between the needs-based budget Mitchell presented to the school board Tuesday night, the superintendent remains hopeful that a tiered approach to tackling the gap will result in schools being fully funded over the next three years.
Mitchell will not present the board of supervisors with the entire budget gap but is hopeful that, in the first year, $20.5 million will be bridged. He said County Administrator Ed Petrovich indicated that he will propose at least $15.5 million of that gap to the supervisors, but they still have to approve it.
The school division’s overall budget for fiscal year 2026 is $499 million. It received $440.4 million for FY25, leaving a gap of approximately $47 million gap last year. Mitchell said it’s unrealistic to expect a massive amount like that to be filled in one year.
So, his goal in his first year was to make progress and set the tone for dealings conducted without “finger-pointing” or the “blame game” between the schools and county.
School and county officials are also working together on a more than $40 million proposed renovation of the Marshall Center to assist with preschool and special education space.
“We had seven meetings with five board members and county supervisors together as well as two separate meetings with the county chief financial officer and the county administrator,” Mitchell said. “The rationale for that was to try to implement and do something different, something that I had done at a previous stint as superintendent, to really try to have a collaborative process, but most importantly try to establish a non-adversarial process.”
Phillip Trayer, the division’s chief financial officer, said the changes resulted in some of the most productive budget conversations he’s been a part of during his tenure with the county.
He said county and school officials both realize that the gaps will need to be tackled systematically.
“Both sides walked away from these informal meetings with an understanding that funding gaps the schools are facing cannot be resolved in a single fiscal year but require multiple years to chip away at the deficits,” Trayer said. “These were very productive meetings. They were very respectful meetings.”
Trayer noted that the division used the five top priorities as agreed upon by parents, students and staff in an August survey.
The five priorities are: competitive salaries to hire and retain high-quality teachers; reduction in class sizes; competitive salaries to hire and retain high-quality support staff; school safety and security; and expanding academic support programs across all levels.
Each sub-group listed those five needs but in varying orders of importance. Trayer also presented the school board with a list of needs that were unfunded in FY25, including transportation, maintenance, technology and other areas.
“Almost all of these items were not wants, but they were needs,” Trayer said. “And these needs will continue to flow from one fiscal year to another until either the demand is removed, or funding to address the issue has been secured by some source.”
Mitchell’s proposed budget includes a 3% cost-of-living increase for all employees, which would cost $8.4 million, $4 million of which would be covered by the state.
It was noted that it would require $27 million for Spotsylvania to match Stafford County’s teacher scales, a mark Trayer said is unrealistic.
Instead, he suggested, Spotsylvania should “chip away at the variance” to keep teacher salaries close enough to mitigate the temptation for educators to leave the county.
Spotsylvania is currently 46 full-time equivalent employees (15 teachers and 31 paraeducators) short of meeting state staffing requirements for special education. The division is also in need of 25 full-time equivalent employees to support English Language Learners.
Trayer said that while that number will not go down, it also likely will not increase anytime soon.
“We are well aware of the changes in the border policies and since November’s [presidential] election, we have modified our future projections,” Trayer said. “No longer do we anticipate additional students of 400 or more year over year in the foreseeable future. We believe that our student level will remain flat and the [ELL] students that we currently have, we believe will remain with us.”
The division is seven employees short of meeting requirements for Career Technical Education programs, a gap it plans to fill by hiring a career investigations teacher at each of the seven middle schools.
Four school counselors are recommended at a cost of $387,000; the county currently has 1 counselor for every 800 students compared to the state guidelines of 1 per 325 students.
Eight psychologists are recommended at a cost of $954,000. The county currently employs 1 counselor per 2,100 students. State guidelines call for 1 per 1,000, while the national recommendation is 1 for every 250 students.
Nicole Cole, who represents the Battlefield District on the school board, called on county residents to implore supervisors to increase the county’s contribution to schools.
“The community has an obligation, I feel, as do we, to hold board of supervisors members accountable for supporting the budget,” Cole said … “It’s been an effort to meet with individual board of supervisors members and with the county executives to continue to help them come along and increase their understanding of why the school division needs to be a priority for funding.”
On Monday at 6 p.m., the school board will hold a public meeting to give the community a chance to weigh in on Mitchell’s budget proposal.
