School Superintendent Gurley lays out case for $9 million request
The Charlottesville City Manager is recommending a two cent increase on the property tax rate as well as increases in both the meals tax and the lodging tax.
Sam Sanders is recommending a budget based on $251,526,900 of revenues, a 10.11 percent increase over the current fiscal year. He said the document is based on Council’s adoption of Strategic Plan goals last September. (read that story)
“It is important for us to never lose sight that as we build a budget and do for the work, we’re doing it with this in mind,” Sanders said. “There are $23 million in new revenue for this fiscal year alone and your top funding priorities are collective bargaining, class and compensation, and investment in schools.
Sanders said he attempted to build a budget without increasing tax rates, but felt he had direction from Council to pursue that option. If adopted as is, the meals tax would increase from 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent. The lodging tax would increase from 8 percent to 9 percent. The property tax rate would increase from $0.96 per $100 of assessed value to $0.98 cents per $100 of assessed value.
“Raising taxes is never easy and never taken lightly,” Sanders said. “Because this proposal does rely on tax increases, I want to ensure both Council and the public at large that I followed through on some of the difficult decision I had initially provided to you as something that we could do with regard to internal budget planning as a trade-off on some of the increased tax revenues.”
Sanders said he made $2.5 million worth of cuts to departments and reduced another $2 million by deferring the hiring of people for some vacant positions. (review the recommended budget here)
During his presentation, Sanders said the city will be a very different workplace when all six collective bargaining units are in place, and this will be a major change for the fiscal realities for the city. The budget has a two percent salary increase for all employees and a one percent cost of living increase for retirees on city pensions.
The recommended budget only recommends funding $7 million of Charlottesville City Schools’ $9 million request. However, the capital improvement program includes $30 million for conversion of Walker Upper Elementary School to a Pre-K center.
Superintendent Gurley presents $9 million request from schools
Before Sanders presented his budget, the school system presented their funding request to the city.
“Our enrollment is trending upward,” said Superintendent Royal Gurley. “We are heading back to pre-pandemic numbers.”
That may not last for long according to projections from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. Data released in mid-January project a total enrollment of 4,209 for the upcoming school year, down slightly from an actual enrollment of 4,220 this year. The Weldon Cooper Center projects that declining to 3,754 by 2028 though demographer Hamilton Lombard has told me that number does not reflect potential changes that may be caused by the new Development Code. (review the projections)
Gurley said the school system will receive around $3 million less from the Commonwealth of Virginia because of lower enrollment numbers during the pandemic. The Local Composite Index is used by the Virginia Department of Education to determine a community’s relative worth and another factor is the recent jump in property values. (review the DOE site)
“According to the state guidelines, the higher your LCI, the greater the locality’s ability to pay,” Gurley said.
As such, the school system is asking Council to make up the difference. Gurley also said that the school system used one-time money to pay for a state-mandated two percent salary increase and requested the local government cover that expense as well.
The school budget also includes 21.5 new positions, many of which will be targeted to students who don’t speak English as a first language as well as anticipated enrollment growth. Again, the Weldon Cooper Center currently projects a decline over the next five years.
As his presentation neared its conclusion, Gurley summarized the school system’s request.
“This includes an ask in the increase of the city appropriation for the FY25 budget of roughly $9 million,” Gurley said.
Another factor in the request is the city’s acquisition of Albemarle County’s share of the Charlottesville Area Technical Education Center. Another unknown is what additional funding for education might be in the final budget to be approved by the General Assembly.
Councilors discussed the possibility of revisiting local formulas that fund public education to provide more funding.
“We need to be able to go out and tell the rest of the community, okay, the baseline has shifted, things are different now,” said City Councilor Brian Pinkston. “That means you are going to have to contribute more, Mr. and Mrs. taxpayer. That’s what we’ll do.”
I will have more of what’s in the budget and Council’s reaction in the upcoming editions of Charlottesville Community Engagement.
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