This article was written by Scott McCaffrey of FFX Now and can be found here.
While acknowledging a request for more funding is on the horizon, the chair of Fairfax County’s School Board says she is eager to avoid a repeat of budget clashes earlier this year between her body and the Board of Supervisors.
Springfield District School Board member Sandy Anderson, who rotated in as chair over the summer, said Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) leaders need to be realistic about the current state of fiscal affairs, and considerate of the choices supervisors will need to make next spring.
“I do not want us to continue down the path of being in direct conflict with our largest funder,” Anderson said at a work session yesterday (Wednesday) where county school leaders got their first look at budget projections for fiscal year 2027, beginning next July.
In Virginia, school boards don’t have independent taxing authority. Many districts, including Fairfax County, rely on revenue from the locality’s governing body for the bulk of funds. Improving the working relationship with county supervisors has been the recurring theme this fall.
Anderson’s comments reflect the likelihood of limits to future funding from the county government. In September, County Executive Bryan Hill urged the School Board and superintendent to craft a “budget of reality” for the coming fiscal year.
Early figures from Superintendent Michelle Reid and FCPS staff suggest the 177,000-student school division will need a minimum $180.6 million more in funding from the county government than the $2.7 billion it is receiving for the current fiscal year.
While that $2.7 billion marked an increase from the preceding year, it fell short of what Reid had requested, forcing FCPS to cut $121.3 million at the last minute from their $3.9 billion budget after the Board of Supervisors declined to increase the county’s allocation.
Having less money available than Reid had sought meant the school board had to scale back promised pay raises and make other cuts, including to special education and classroom monitor positions.
“We need to learn from last year,” said Hunter Mill District School Board member Melanie Meren.
The preliminary budget forecast provided on Nov. 12 anticipates $198.8 million in new expenses offset slightly by $13.3 million in new revenue.
The figure represents a “very basic, what-we-can-get-by-with” funding request, said Leigh Burden, the school system’s chief financial officer.
Like Anderson, at-large board member Ilryong Moon said he had the “desire not to see what happened last year happen again.”
Being cautious from the outset could avoid a repeat of that scenario, fellow at-large member Kyle McDaniel said.
“There are going to be cuts and reductions. There’s no way around that,” he said.
That seemed to be a prevailing point of view at the work session among many school board members.
“The budget times have just gotten worse” since last year’s budget battle, said Braddock District School Board member Rachna Sizemore Heizer.
She called what awaits local leaders “a sour budget year.”
During the two-hour meeting, Reid and staff provided a list of programs and services where FCPS does more than required under state law. Any or all of those could be areas to trim the budget.
Mason District Representative Ricardy Anderson suggested putting out such a broad list could prove “falsely alarming.” She pressed Reid to attach dollar figures to potential cuts as soon as possible, so the community conversation about choices would be more informed.
“I want to manage expectations,” Ricardy Anderson said. “This cannot be business as usual. We cannot say ‘everything matters.’ We’re going to have some gaps. We have to evaluate how we’re spending our dollars.”
It’s too early in the budget process to connect potential cuts in services with specific savings, Burden said.
“None of that analysis is ready for prime time,” she said.
Ricardy Anderson advised Reid and her staff to be strategic as they work through the process.
“Use a scalpel instead of a hatchet,” she said. “We can save a penny here, a penny here, a penny here and it adds up eventually to a dollar.”
Reid said she would do what she could.
“My budget has to be what I think the division needs to be successful,” she said.
The superintendent acknowledged that if the Board of Supervisors doesn’t go along with the budget request she’s scheduled to release in January, choices and cutbacks would have to be made.
“If we’re not fully funded — and I’m not convinced yet that’s not going to happen — but if we’re not, we’re going to have to,” she said.
In recent years, the dollar amount of the county’s transfer to the school system has risen by 4.6% to 6.8% each year. Dranesville District School Board member Robyn Lady said those percentages don’t tell the full story.
“While there has been an increase, the part of the pie that [supervisors] are keeping is increasing much higher than ours,” Lady said.
Lady acknowledged the reasons behind supervisors’ hesitancy in fully funding FCPS’s requests, given that the county has a host of other competing priorities to address as well.
“I understand, and I think the public understands,” she said. “Everything costs more.”
Among those giving hints she’d like to see a more aggressive ask for funding was Franconia District Representative Marcia St. John-Cunning. She pointed to an increasing number of at-risk students who need special services, from special education to English language instruction.
“It’s not just about numbers. It’s about people,” St. John-Cunning said of the annual budget.
McDaniel’s view was that the billions flowing through the annual budget need to be targeted at the most pressing needs rather than school leaders constantly seeking new revenue.
“I don’t subscribe to the notion that we’re underfunded. We have money,” he said, saying the budget needed to focus on limiting the impact of any cuts to classroom teachers.
“That’s what I am going to be looking at,” said McDaniel, who until May had served as the school board’s budget chair.
The timeline for the school budgeting process includes the following mileposts:
The process will play out not simply with uncertainty over how much county funding will be provided, but what support will arrive from the state and federal governments.
The Virginia government allocates more than $1 billion in funding annually to FCPS. While the federal government provides a large number of grants counted elsewhere in the budget, including funds that are currently being withheld, its contribution to the school system’s operating fund is relatively modest at $50 million.
FCPS started the 2025-2026 school year down about 3,200 students from a year before, a gap expected to save FCPS about $40 million in staffing costs during FY 2027 if it remains. But it also will result in lower state support, as much of that is based on student enrollment.
Sizemore Heizer, who serves as budget chair and led the meeting, asked her colleagues to submit their suggestions for programs that need to be preserved, and those that could do with less, by Dec. 5.
She worked to dissuade those colleagues from pressing to include new initiatives.
“In this era … it is hard to add additional priorities,” Sizemore Heizer said.