The Pulaski County School Board approved its annual budget request at a special called meeting on Wednesday, March 30, 2022. The request will now be forwarded to the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors for consideration. If approved by the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors, the school division will be able to move forward with addressing the following budget priorities:
· 5% pay increase plus a step raise for all teachers
· 5% pay increase for all other support staff
· Revised salary scales for critical shortage support positions- custodians and bus drivers
· The addition of two STEM education teachers for elementary specials programs, another gifted teacher for elementary schools, an EMT instructor to the Career and Technical Education program, and an additional 5th grade teacher for Snowville Elementary due to increased enrollment
· Adding full-time paraprofessionals to all Kindergarten classrooms
· Retirement benefits, health insurance, and salary increases due to re-categorizing current paraprofessionals from part-time to full-time
· Starting a replacement cycle for chrome books
· Adding an additional assistant principal and full time athletic director for Pulaski County Middle School
· Improving communication with the community through a quarterly newsletter
The budget request was approved with a 5-0 vote following a presentation by Mr. Chris Stafford, Assistant Superintendent for Finance & Operations in which he reiterated to the School Board that ESSER II and III funding that had been made available through federal stimulus legislation could not be used for any of the budget priorities as they were one-time only funds that cannot be allocated for recurring expenses. He also stated that those stimulus funds had already been allocated through the grant application process to go toward the various learning loss recovery programs that were underway and capital needs projects throughout the school division.
Dr. Kevin Siers, Superintendent of Pulaski County Public Schools stated “We have developed and the School Board has approved a comprehensive needs based budget request that, if fully funded, will allow Pulaski County to continue providing a high quality educational experience for all of our students and should enable us to remain competitive with other surrounding school divisions in recruiting and retaining the best educators in Southwest Virginia. We look forward to engaging with the County Administrator and Board of Supervisors in the coming weeks to advocate for the priorities established in this budget request and to answer any questions they might have about our budget process.”