Superintendent Proposes $2.4 Billion Budget for Fairfax County Public Schools

I'll be providing some more updates on the proposed budget as I'm able to take some time to analyze it, but Superintendent Jack Dale has proposed a $2.4 billion budget for Fairfax County Public Schools. This represents an 8.4 percent increase over the current $1.75 budget, which was lower than previous ones due to an enormous amount of cuts.

If you're wondering what most of the money goes towards, it's the cost of instruction -- which can get rather high in a large system that continuously ranks among the best in the country.

Most of Dale's budget, or $2.1 billion, goes to costs associated with instruction. The majority of 720 new proposed positions address the school system's whopping enrollment growth and demographic shifts.

The largest school system in Virginia and 11th-largest in the nation, FCPS is expecting an increase of more than 3,900 students next year, capping off an influx of 15,000 students in the last five years and reaching an enrollment of 181,608 students. By next school year, the number of students who require English for Speakers of Other Languages is expected to have grown 48.3 percent since the 2007-2008 school year. The number of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals -- the district's indicator of poverty -- will have grown 35.4 percent.

As was expected, one of the interesting parts of Dale's budget request was a pay increase for teachers -- something they haven't gotten in several years. While the school board appeared to be receptive to the increases (especially when it comes to teacher pay), it's worth noting that the School Board has to get the Board of Supervisors to transfer the money over to their control. The Democrats do control the Board, but many of the Republican supervisors have larger political ambissions so we might be seeing some partisanship get involved in the debate (especially since this an election year).

The potential partisanship from the likes of Pat Herrity and John Cook could prove to be noteworthy as localities in Northern Virginia (such as Prince William County) will be having their superintendents make budget proposals in the next couple of weeks. I say this because the quality school system is one of the main reasons many families decide to live in Fairfax instead of other communities in the DC area. If the partisanship of certain supervisors makes Fairfax look less dedicated to their schools than other counties, however, residents will begin to take notice. So since this debate will not only have an impact on our schools, but the community at large, I will be following the discussion surrounding school budgets in Northern Virginia very closely over the next few weeks.