SCHOOL BOARD APPROVES AMENDED BUDGET PROPOSAL

The Loudoun County School Board approved an amended Superintendent’s Proposed Fiscal Year Operating 2016 Budget on Thursday, January 29th, during a meeting at the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) Administrative Offices in Ashburn.

The amended budget totals $982,144,727. This is $1,254,926 more than proposed by Superintendent Dr. Eric Williams.

The proposed budget was adopted after the School Board approved 10 motions that altered Williams’ proposed budget. These motions included:

1. A reduction of the average high school class size by one student led to the addition of 41 full-time-equivalent positions at a cost of $3,690,000.
2. Fully restoring summer school with offsetting anticipated revenues. The superintendent will provide a framework to the School Board that specifies the nature of the restoration, maximizes student participation, captures available state funding and adjusts for continued utilization of Virtual Loudoun. This added $1.2 million to the proposed budget.
3. Funding full-day kindergarten classes at schools with space available and a projected at-risk kindergarten student population of eight or more students, including those served through a regional program. Maximum class sizes of both 15 students per teacher and 25 students per teacher plus teaching assistant should be used when calculating which schools qualify for a full-day kindergarten program. (This removed 14 full-time-equivalent employees from the proposed budget for a savings of $965,762).
4. Restoring 14 eliminated middle school library assistants at a cost of $661,688.
5. A transition specialist position to assist special education students was added at a cost of $119,000.
6. The allocation of salary increases to LCPS employees already at the top of all pay scales in the form of a one-time increase representing 1 percent of their annual salary. This can be done with no fiscal impact.
7. Providing funds to construct a playground for Meadowland Elementary at a cost of $50,000.
8. Modifying the allocation of differentiated staffing standards to reassign full-time-equivalent positions from Heritage and Potomac Falls high schools to Park View High School. This has no fiscal impact on the budget.
9. Adding plan design changes to the LCPS health insurance program to reduce premium increases from 15 percent to 10 percent (for a cost savings of $2.6 million). This motion was amended to add a $150 to $300 deductible for the point of service (POS) plan and reducing the premium increase from 10 percent to 9 percent (for a cost savings of $450,000).
10. Reducing class size contingency positions from 40 to 35 full-time-equivalent positions for a savings of $450,000.

01/30/15/wbb