Schools Begin to Look at Budget for Next Year

Public Hearing Set for Early January

By Brian Nowlin, Staff Writer

LUNENBURG – With a new calendar year also comes the work for many groups on upcoming budget issues. Lunenburg County School Board officials recently discussed the upcoming budget schedule they will be using. Additionally, LCPS Superintendent Charles Berkley noted that the proposed budget announcements from state officials would have an impact on the local budget as well.

Last week,  Governor Terry McAuliffe announced a budget package for Virginia’s public schools, which combined with higher education announcements as well as over a $1 billion payout in K-12 and higher education.

The two-year budget proposal represents the largest new investment in public education in over a decade, and the largest total investment in the history of the Commonwealth.

Some of the public education priorities funded in the Governor’s biennial budget include:

Providing roughly 2,500 additional instructional positions – $139.1M

Fully funds the cost of rebenchmarking the Standards of Quality and additional updates – $429.8M

Provides flexible funding to divisions based on free lunch population to be used for drop-out prevention, parent engagement, English Language Learners, etc. – $50M

Implementation grants and additional innovation grants in support of SOL Innovation Committee to enhance creativity and innovation in high school – $500,000

Support for teacher training for computer science to address shortages – $1.1M

Covers the cost of credential tests and doubles the equipment investment – $5M

One time cost to shorten additional SOL tests by converting to the CAT format  – $5M

Grants  to pilot effective public-private delivery models for high-quality early education and to upskill early education providers – $6.9M

Provides a 2% salary increase for teachers, non-teacher instructional positions, and support positions consistent with state employee raises – $83.2M

Increase general fund contribution to teacher retirement – $30M

While it remains to be seen how the state budget progresses or even which areas will directly help local schools, county officials will be busy in January as they have the first budget meeting on January 11, 2016 with a public hearing session being held at 6 p.m. at Central High School in room 104.