The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors heard a presentation from Superintendent Dr. Mark Miear stating that the school system needs an additional $2.3 million in funding for the upcoming fiscal year.
The request exceeds the approximately $1.7 million in increased revenue that the county expects to have for FY 2019, which begins July 1.
Miear said that the majority of the additional funds would go toward raises for teacher and staff (nearly $2 million). He said that many teachers are behind on the pay scale, which is based on tenure.
Only 409 of 867 employees are on the correct salary steps, according to Miear’s presentation.
When asked by Supervisor Sara Bohn (District A) why the request to correct the pay scale steps was so important this year, Miear said that it has been put off the last few years.
“We can’t keep kicking this can down the road,” he said.
Miear noted that many teachers living in the county, including his wife, carpool to Salem everyday because the city’s pay scale is so much higher. The starting wage in the county is $36,503 whereas Salem’s is over $40,000.
Radford City and Pulaski and Floyd counties also have higher starting salaries for beginning teachers of at least $2,000 more, with Giles County being the only surrounding school district to offer a lower starting wage.
It takes Montgomery County teachers between six and ten years to catch up to the surrounding school systems in pay.
He said that the district is also losing out on potential Virginia Tech and Radford University graduates who move to areas with higher starting salaries.
Miear said it doesn’t cost that much more to live in places like Winchester or Richmond, where salaries can be $10,000 higher than in the county.
“Our number one resource is our teachers,” he said. We have to get the best.”
It was also pointed out that, as teachers lose out on salary increases, it also affects their retirement through the Virginia Retirement System.
“Every year we put it off, they lose more,” board member Connie Froggatt said.
Also included in the $2.3 million request is increased bandwidth, health insurance costs, technology costs and maintaining a program that provides many students with Chromebooks.
The county presented its preliminary projections following Miear’s presentation where the finance department said that the $1.7 million in expected revenue is approximately $500,000 less than was expected due to the county losing revenue on sales taxes and delinquent property taxes.
The county’s budget has not been finalized, but County Administrator Craig Meadows said that funds would either have to be diverted from other areas or taxes would have to be raised to meet the school system’s request. He said neither action has been decided upon or even recommended to the supervisors at this point.
The county will not have a proposed budget until it sees what the school decides.
Although the request will not be finalized until the school board votes on its budget at its Feb. 6 meeting, it is unlikely that the $2.3 million number would go down, as Miear has said that, realistically, the school system needs just over $7 million in additional funding.
Miear will present the budget to the county at the supervisors’ Feb. 12 meeting. Meadows will present the budget to the county March 5. The county will establish an advertised tax rate and budget March 19, hold a public hearing on the proposed tax rate and budget April 5 and adopt the tax rate and budget April 16.
For more information on meetings and locations, visit the county website at www.montva.com.
