Fredericksburg City Council Discusses How School Board Can Fill Budget Gap
Council considering suggesting use of school division's operating fund balance.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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There is a gap of about $1.9 million between what the Fredericksburg School Board has requested for next year’s budget and what the city manager’s budget recommends.
City Council is considering suggesting that the division use its operating fund balance to fill it.
City Finance Director Amanda Six told Council at at work session on Tuesday that the school division had about $3.9 million in its operating fund balance as of June 30, 2025, the end of last fiscal year.
“The city does allow the school division to hold an operating fund balance. That is not required by [Virginia Code] and is not consistent with what all divisions are given the opportunity to do,” Six said. “[That fund balance] is something that could be on the table for the schools to use to do some of the things they talked to you about.”
According to the School Board’s approved budget, the requested $2.7 million in new funding would support a 7% “compensation adjustment” for staff and the addition of two English learner teachers, one gifted education teacher, a career and technical education teacher, and three special education instructional assistants, among other new positions.
City Manager Tim Baroody recommended a 4-cent real estate tax increase for fiscal year 2027, which runs from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, and Council has advertised a 5-cent increase. The final tax rate, which will be set later this month, cannot go above 5-cents without Council holding a second public hearing on the budget.
Ward 4 representative Charlie Frye suggested that he would be supportive of asking the school division to use its fund balance to meet its goals for next fiscal year, saying that raising the tax rate “is rough on the citizens.”
Mayor Kerry Devine said the school division’s operating fund balance is “very healthy and is something they could use.”
She noted that the division is expecting an additional $300,000 in revenue from the state.
“Last week [at a joint meeting of the School Board and City Council] they also thought the $300,000 was a conservative estimate and that there may be additional money coming from the state,” Devine said.
Susanna Finn, Ward 3 representative, said she has concerns about asking the school division to use one-time funds for salary increases.
“I’m supportive of using [the fund balance] to offset one-time expenses, but for the ongoing operating expense of peoples’ paychecks, it makes me incredibly nervous that we would ask them to use one-time money,” she said.
Devine pointed out that “it’s unusual for a school division to have this operating fund balance in the first place.”
Six said that the school division’s budget for the current fiscal year—fiscal year 2026—included the use of about $1.4 million from the operating fund balance, but that the School Board’s budget for next fiscal year doesn’t propose use any of the fund balance.
City Council held a public hearing on the fiscal year 2027 budget at a meeting following the work session. Five members of the public spoke or wrote letters asking Council to fully fund the school division according to its budget request, “including adequate funds to support [special education and English language learner] needs,” as Melanie Roth, an educator and parent of a special education student said.
According to City Council’s budget calendar, there will be a first read of the budget for fiscal year 2027, including the school division’s budget, next Tuesday, April 28.
The budget will be adopted on May 12.
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