Spotsylvania School Board Holds "Civil" Budget Work Session
The board worked through the budget request for fiscal year 2027 with none of the outbursts or recesses that have disrupted meetings in recent years.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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During an almost five-hour-long work session on Monday evening, the Spotsylvania School Board went line-by-line through the proposed budget for next fiscal year—and came to a consensus about items to add and one item to reduce.
“I am very appreciative of the level of cooperation,” superintendent Clint Mitchell told the board at the end of the work session, noting that members kept things “cool” and “civil” even when the discussion had the potential to become heated.
The outcome of the work session is that board members agreed to increase the $425.6 million operating budget request by about $356,000 to cover the cost of two additional career and technical education courses—EMT and combined cosmetology/barbering—as well as an additional behavior support position and an increased allocation for high school marching bands.
The board agreed to reduce the budget by $46,000 by changing a proposed new position within the legal services department from paralegal to legal assistant. (The budget still includes $221,000 for an in-house attorney, a new position that Mitchell and board members hope will result in less money spent on legal fees.)
The only discussion that had the potential to become tense on Monday was surrounding increased support for marching bands. In the past month, parents and students involved in marching band programs at the county’s five high schools have been speaking at meetings and emailing their board representatives about the financial burden the programs place on families.
Marching band is an extracurricular activity, and the school division currently provides stipends for a band director and assistant director at each high school, as well as covering the cost of transportation and new uniforms for each school’s band members every 10 years.
But according to parents who spoke during public comments on Monday, the full cost of the marching band program per season is about $60,000. Some of that cost is paid by students in the form of up-front dues ranging from $250 to $400, and the rest of it through constant fundraising, the parents said.
“Marching band students are asked to shoulder a financial burden that other extracurricular students are not,” said Lisa Pape, the vice president of the Massaponax Band Parents Association. She said student athletes do not have to pay up-front costs to participate and that “extracurricular activities should be affordable and accessible to all students.”
Lee Hill representative Rich Lieberman said Monday that marching band supporters have made a number of requests for financial support from the school division.
“There are two asks that I think I can support,” he said. “I’m proposing that we look at funding two additional stipends for assistant coaches per band, and [establish a fund of] $27,500 [$5,500 per band] to maintain school-owned instruments.”
Berkeley district representative Larry DiBella said he would support this proposal, but other board members weren’t comfortable with it.
“l think our resources and attention are better spent coming up with ways to address the need of any student in any activity who’s being prevented from participating due to financial need, not cherry-picking by focusing on only one activity,” said Belen Rodas, Courtland representative and Vice Chair.
Rodas also said she has qualms about increasing funding for the marching bands when there are special education paraprofessional positions that can’t be funded due to budget constraints.
Chancellor representative Carol Medawar and Battlefield representative Jennifer Craig-Ford agreed that they don’t want to be seen as “pitting one activity against another.”
Mitchell said he thinks there is “a disconnect” between what the band parents are asking for and what school band directors say they need.
“We have almost a half-billion-dollar budget. I don’t think it will be a problem for us to increase the band allocation,” he said. “But there need to be conversations at the school level with the principal, the band directors, and the band boosters, and I don’t believe that’s happening. All three are telling me three different things.”
In the end, Mitchell proposed funding a stipend for a second assistant band director at each school, and providing $5,000 per school to repair broken instruments, for a total increase of $37,000 to support marching bands.
There will be a second budget work session on February 9, and the School Board is expected to approve its budget on February 17.
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