The Pulaski County School Board approved its final budget for the 2022-2023 school year at a special called meeting on Wednesday, June 29, 2022.
The approved budget included a five percent increase plus a step raise for all teachers, five percent raise for all support staff, an updated salary scale for custodians and bus drivers, converted all paraprofessionals to a full-time salary scale, added an elementary gifted education teacher, added an additional teacher at Snowville Elementary School to assist with increased enrollment, and included funds to begin a replacement cycle for Chromebooks.
“We are extremely pleased with the additional state funding that was provided in this year’s budget and excited that we are able to offer a minimum of a five percent salary increase to all employees” stated Pulaski County Public Schools Superintendent, Dr. Kevin Siers. “The increases for our teachers and staff were certainly well deserved after all that they’ve worked through during the past few years.”
A number of the School Board’s objectives were not funded in the final budget. The Pulaski County School Board initially requested an additional $1.6 million from the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors to address all of their budget objectives but then reduced that request to $914,294 after the final state budget was approved. The Board of Supervisors appropriated an additional $10,000 at its meeting on June 27, 2022.
“Thankfully, the state upped the ante after our initial budget request was made to the county, so we were able to address a majority of the School Board’s objectives” Dr. Siers stated. “Unfortunately, we are not yet able to address the community’s request to improve our literacy rates by hiring a paraprofessional for each Kindergarten classroom. Literacy aides would certainly have been a worthwhile investment for the future of Pulaski County and I hope that the Board of Supervisors will reconsider this request when making their budget adjustments this year or when looking at the 2023-2024 budget.”
The fact that only $10,000 of local funding was appropriated toward the $1,943,484 required local match is cause for concern for Mr. Chris Stafford, the Pulaski County Public Schools Assistant Superintendent for Finance & Operations.
“This sets up a problematic situation with next year’s budget because there is another five percent pay raise included in the second year of the two-year state budget. However, since there will be no increase in state basic aid in the second year of the budget, we will have no choice but to request a larger amount of matching funds from the county in order to provide employee raises in the 2024 fiscal year,” Mr. Stafford stated.
The approved state budget also provided a one-time investment of approximately $2 million through a school construction grants program which Pulaski County plans to earmark for school security upgrades that were recommended through school safety audits conducted by the Virginia State Police and Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office in 2018. A number of recommendations from these audits have already been addressed over the past four years, but some of the costlier construction related improvements remain.
The Pulaski County Board of Supervisors and School Board entered into an agreement two years ago that allows retired debt service from school construction projects to be rolled into the school division’s capital funds account and used for upcoming school construction projects. This amounted to over $400,000 of funds in fiscal year 2022 that can go toward building projects such as school security upgrades and the amount should increase in FY2023 with additional revenue generated by the cigarette tax.
“The agreement between our two Boards to allow retired debt service to go toward future construction and capital projects is a great plan that allows us to take a preventative approach to facility maintenance instead of our previous system of having to ask for funds in reaction to system failures or to deal with deteriorating buildings. There’s really nothing like it in place for any other school division in our region and we greatly appreciate the Board of Supervisors and county administrator for allowing these funds to remain with our schools” stated Dr. Siers. “The money provided this year can be added to the additional two million dollars of state money and will allow us to make significant progress with our safety and security upgrades.”
Pulaski County Public Schools has already issued teaching contracts for the upcoming school year and will now move forward with sending letters of appointment for all support staff with updated salary information.