The Prince William County School Board voted last week to approve $5.6 million in cuts from Superintendent Steven L. Walts’s budget for fiscal 2014. Walts amended his original budget to compensate for reduced funding from the state and county.
The board voted, 7 to 0, in favor of the revised budget, from $893.6 million to $888 million. Member Lisa E. Bell (Neabsco) did not attend the meeting.
Cuts were achieved in part by reductions in planned technology improvements and in exploring the expansion of the county’s specialty programs. The budget institutes across-the-board cuts in the schools and central offices. Each school will have to reduce its operating budget by half a percent; central office departments will cut their budgets by 1 percent.
Some departments, such as special education, will not be included in the across-the-board cuts because of federal requirements the county must meet, said Dave Cline, associate superintendent for finance and support services.
The budget preserves a 2 percent pay increase for eligible employees and another 1 percent increase to offset the new required contributions to the Virginia Retirement System. It maintains current class size, said Phil Kavits, director of communications services for the county schools.
Should additional money be put back into the budget, it would go to reducing class size, according to Chairman MIlt Johns.
Did I dream it or is the BOCS giving the school system a larger percent of revenue?
People act like large class size is something new. It is not. It has been going on for at least a decade.
Most of the people who spoke at the past week’s school board meeting spoke out in favor of the proposed swimming pool for the mid-county high school.
