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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- Restoring 14 eliminated middle school library assistants at a cost of $661,688.
- A transition specialist position to assist special education students was added at a cost of $119,000.
- 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.
- Providing funds to construct a playground for Meadowland Elementary at a cost of $50,000.
- 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.
- 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).
- Reducing class size contingency positions from 40 to 35 full-time-equivalent positions for a savings of $450,000.
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