FY2025-26 budget of approximately $270.8 million adopted
MONTGOMERY Co. – Montgomery County residents can expect a one cent increase per $100 assessed value on their real estate taxes in the coming fiscal 2025-2026 year, with the $1.24 million additional proceeds going to the county schools.
Before voting on the tax increase, Montgomery County residents were invited by the BOS to speak during public address at the special Board of Supervisors meeting on April 21, 2025.
Sherry Jacob of Blacksburg said, “There’s no better place to invest than in our future, our future is our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren.”
“I just hope we can consider supporting the schools so that people come here because they want to and because we pay them appropriately,” Martha Ann Stallings of Blacksburg said.
The supervisors then entered a work session to discuss the FY2025-26 county budget. Supervisor Derek Kitts asked for clarification to confirm that there would be no cuts to programs in the school system.
“Some of our neighboring jurisdictions have had cuts, real cuts that reduced the current amount of funding that they’re providing to the schools,” County Administrator Angela Hill said. “We are not doing that. We’re including 3.1 [million dollars] in the proposed budget and if you add one cent to that, it’s about 1.24 million dollars more.”
“Which is still a six million increase from the 2024 budget,” Kitts said.
“We’ve never fully funded a request from the school, that’s the bottom line,” Supervisor Sara Bohn said. “It’s the same thing every year.”
Supervisor Todd King said, “Last year on the school’s budget, new money they got was almost 12 million dollars. So, without a tax increase this year, they will receive six million, a little over six million more dollars, right? So, that is 18 million dollars in two years.”
A new item with the budget this year would be providing all Montgomery County Public School students with free in-school meals throughout the district, if passed.
Superintendent Bernard Bragen, Jr., when asked at the meeting if he can provide numbers to support the need for free meals, was unable to provide that information.
“I don’t know if I could come up with some kind of proof or numbers or things like that. I know there’s anecdotal evidence that we do have a number of families that have food insecurity, which means they don’t have regular meals all the time in their homes,” Bragen said.
Additionally, Bragen confirmed that the dual-language course for teaching Spanish and English would be at the Prices Fork Elementary School and specifically for kindergarten students. He said that this school was chosen, in part, because of its higher number of multi-lingual children in that community.
Another topic of discussion during the April 21 meeting was the looming deadline to meet certification to receive funding in complying with recent federal guidelines for diversity and inclusion programs. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) programs, or “whatever names they may appear,” were set to terminate per President Donald Trump’s policy dated January 20, 2025 (www.whitehouse.gov). The Department of Education had established a deadline for compliance of all public schools on April 24, 2025, which included a 10-day extension.
“We have an Office of Equity, that works on issues of equity and access for our children. Yes, we do,” Bragen said.
Sara Bohn responded, “The federal government’s not saying get rid of that.”
“It’s saying right now…get rid of programs that specifically target and teach DEI. We do not do that. Or programs that advance one child over another, or staff member on the basis of race, and we do not do that either,” Bragen said.
The vote to approve the tax increase and the FY2025-26 budget were both passed on a 5-2 vote. Vice Chair Steve Fijalkowski and King voted nay on both items.
“If you start out for an ask of 4.7 and you get up as high as 7.7, after a record amount of money from last year, 12 million followed by 7.7 million? I just, I can’t see that, and everything would require a tax increase,” Fijalkowski said.
Fijalkowski went on to say that the Supervisors received many emails, with a majority of those from Blacksburg residents supporting the tax increase, some even wanting more of an increase.
“With all the needs are met, as Supervisor King pointed out, this is all a waste,” Fijalkowski said.
Only real estate taxes will increase, with personal property taxes remaining at $2.55, aircraft at $1.23 and machinery and tools at $1.82, all per $100 assessed value, according to www.montva.com.
