The City of Fairfax School Board received an overview of the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) proposed FY2023 budget at their regular school board meeting on Monday, February 7, 2022. Assistant Superintendent of Financial Services Leigh Burden and Budget Director Alice Wigington spoke to the school board about the FCPS FY23 proposed budget and offered insight to the impact of the four city schools.
The FCPS FY 2023 budget focuses on three main areas: increased compensation for employees, opportunity and access for students, and critical operational needs.
In the proposed budget, FCPS employees would get a four percent market scale adjustment, step increase for eligible staff members, and a continuation of increased pay for substitutes and bus drivers established earlier in 2021. These increases are “important for employee retention and recruitment,” said Burden.
Additionally, the proposed budget would address student opportunities and access. The budget would increase staffing in special education and English Learning at elementary schools, advanced academic resource teachers, and assistant principals. All four city schools would see increased staffing under this proposed budget.
The proposed budget also will address critical operational needs at FCPS including increased personnel in the human resources department to address school and district staffing needs. The budget would extend high school assistant principal contracts to twelve months to recognize the summer work done by administrators.
The City of Fairfax Schools contracts with FCPS for instructional services under the School Services Agreement. The contract accounts for about forty percent of the entire City of Fairfax budget. To see more about this agreement, please go to our website. (link)
The budget is currently in its approval cycle. Burden presented a timeline of dates for FCPS to work with the Fairfax County Supervisors and the Governor’s budget. The budget is scheduled to be adopted by the FCPS school board in May, 2022.
City of Fairfax School Board Members showed support for the budget and its priorities. “We appreciate the concentration on increasing employee salaries and the focus on additional support at our schools through special education, advanced academics, English language learners and assistant principals,” said Carolyn Pitches, City of Fairfax School Board Chair. “We will be closely watching the budget cycle this spring and will advocate to FCPS for our four schools throughout the process.”