Charles City County Public Schools approve $7.4 million operating budget for FY2025-26

Charles City County Public Schools has approved a proposed $7.4 million operating budget for FY2025-26.

School board members voted unanimously to approve the budget of $7,423,743 for the upcoming fiscal year at Tuesday night’s regular school board meeting. That amount is $628,878, or 9.3 percent, more than the current school year.

As part of the operating budget, a three-percent employee compensation increase is proposed. The budget also includes keeping the positions of the school district having a mental health specialist, a second reading specialist, and a math interventionalist. Currently those positions are funded by grants that are due to expire. In total, those three positions total $265,000.

The school’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) comes in with a price tag of $461,567. CIP funding is used to address one-time needs for facility upgrades and projects and is separate from the operating budget.

The big-ticket item on the CIP is the addition of a new school bus at the cost of $158,000. Other items include new computers for grades 3-6 as phase two of technology upgrades ($119,000) and replacing of carpet at the elementary school ($63,567). Of the $461,567 total for CIP projects, the school is asking the county for $359,567, with the remaining balance covered by grants.

The school board held a public hearing on Thursday, Feb. 13, where they presented the budget. While there were no speakers at the meeting, school board members did make comments on the budget.

“We ask for more local funding because the state is giving us less,” commented school board member Joy Harris. “Our LCI (Local Composite Index) went up by 18 percent. We ask for what we ask for is because we need it.”

The LCI is a tool that gauges a locality’s ability to pay for educational costs.

For school board member Royce Paige, he expressed disappointment in the lack of attendees at the budget hearing.

“We need more than five people to help us make this decision,” he said at the meeting. “If you have kids in the school system or if you pay taxes, you need to be out here.”

The school’s budget is scheduled to be presented at Charles City’s Board of Supervisors’ meeting on Feb. 25.