Spotsylvania Superintendent's Proposed Budget Includes Investments in CTE, Transportation
Clint Mitchell proposed his budget for fiscal year 2027 last week. The School Board is scheduled to approve its version of the budget on February 17.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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This school year, 508 students applied to Spotsylvania County Public Schools’ health science program, and more than half were turned away due to a lack of seats.
The division received 218 applications for 80 seats in the culinary arts program, and 178 applications for 40 seats in the welding program, finance director Phillip Trayer told the School Board last week.
Demand for Career and Technical Education (CTE) has increased by 35% since the 2023-24 school year, Trayer said, and though the number of available CTE seats has increased overall by 232, there still aren’t enough available, especially in these three most popular programs.
Superintendent Clint Mitchell’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2027—which begins July 1, 2026 and runs through June 30, 2027—would add one new full time teaching position to each of these three programs. This would open up the health science program to 100 more students, and the culinary arts and welding programs to 80 more students each.
The three new CTE positions are among 33 new positions requested in Mitchell’s budget, which he and Trayer presented to the School Board on January 20.
Other requested new positions include three special education diagnosticians; two school counselors to reduce caseloads per counselor to 325 (still above the national recommended caseload of 250); four elementary and seven middle school reading specialists/interventionists to implement the requirements of the Virginia Literacy Act; and one assistant principal and two administrative interns to support schools with over 500 students.
Seventy nine percent of the $425.6 million proposed operating budget is made up of staff salaries and wages, according to information presented last week.
That includes an investment in the transportation department, a commitment Mitchell made during last year’s budget process. Bus aides will receive cost of living and hourly rate increases, lead bus drivers and trainers will be converted from 10- to 12-month positions, and “up to 24” hourly bus attendants will move to contracted positions.
It also includes the second step of a plan to modernize teacher salary scales and bring them into line with surrounding jurisdictions, especially Stafford. Phase 1 of the plan, implemented as part of the current budget, halved the salary difference between teachers in Spotsylvania and Stafford at steps 5-20 of the scale, and extended an average salary increase of 6.14%.
The proposed overall budget for all school division funds, including capital improvement, food service, and fleet service, is $547.3 million, which is an increase of $55.4 million over the current year.
About half of that increase is driven by the capital improvement plan and debt service, Trayer said.
The proposed budget anticipates $234.7 million in state revenue, an increase in $11 million over the current fiscal year, and $173.4 million in local revenue from the Board of Supervisors, a $5.5 million increase over the current year.
The local increase reflects what is “expected to be proposed” by County Administrator Ed Petrovitch, according to last week’s budget presentation.
Mitchell said he and Petrovitch have “a system and process that we have agreed on since I arrived” for working together on the school and county budget. He also stressed that “it is not just local government funds that [will] close” any gap between revenues and expenditures.
“The increase in state funding allows us to close the gap as well,” he said.
There will be a public hearing and School Board work session on the budget in coming weeks. The School Board is scheduled to approve a budget on February 17 and present it to the Board of Supervisors on February 19.
Petrovitch is scheduled to present the county’s budget to the Board of Supervisors on February 10.
More information about the school division’s proposed budget is here.
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