By Heather Michon
Correspondent
At the heart of Wednesday night’s (Feb. 12) School Board budget planning session was a somewhat philosophical question: is it better to ask for what you need or only for what you think you might be able to get?
As Superintendent Peter Gretz outlined in his budget presentation, the needs of Fluvanna County Public Schools for Fiscal Year 2026 are substantial.
He noted that while the schools have added 31 new programs in the past 15 years, staffing is still at the same level as in 2009. The student population has dropped slightly, but they have picked up an additional 100 special education students in the past five years, and the number of students learning English as a second language has doubled to 128.
Despite efforts over the past several years to increase salary rates to make FCPS competitive with other districts, pay remains lower than in some surrounding counties. Bringing everyone to competitive rates would require a 14 percent across-the-board increase.
Health-care costs are expected to go up by 10 percent, and if that has to be passed on to staff, the cost increase could exceed salary increases.
With the upcoming retirement of long-time Executive Director of Finance and Instruction Brenda Grasser, Gretz would like to reorganize the senior staff and add a director of human resources and a communication director. He also advocated for the addition of a behavioral specialist.
Gretz noted that there were many things they would like to have to bring the schools up to optimal staffing and instructional level but declined to add to the budget this cycle. These include an additional nurse for Central Elementary and close to a dozen math and reading specialists and interventionists.
Nine instructional aides previously funded by a COVID-era grant program called ESSER that has ended will be funded for FY26 through money already in the budget. They will need to either be fully funded or eliminated starting in FY27.
In all, Gretz presented a budget of $24,455,332. He sought a minimum three percent raise for teachers and staff and to absorb the increase in health care costs, along with the three new staff positions.
This would increase the local funding request by approximately 9.8 percent, or $2,185,994 over the previous fiscal year.
From the start of the discussion, it was clear there were not enough votes to approve the entire package as presented.
Danny Reed (Fork Union) commended Gretz for laying out “what’s going to make our schools run optimally” but did not believe the Board of Supervisors would approve that type of increase in local funding. “I just don’t think our county has $2.1 million.”
He wanted to see something closer to $1.5 million, a decrease of close to 30 percent from Gretz’s proposal.
James Kelley (Palmyra) said he was “prepared to make a motion for this budget as it stands, with Dr. Gretz’s endorsement, and to advocate, fight – but in a constructive way – with the county.”
At the other end of the spectrum was Andrew Pullen (Columbia), who said the figure he had in mind was $512,013, less than 25 percent of Gretz’s proposal.
Closing the gap with such wide divergence among the members was complicated by the meeting format.
Due to illness, Dr. Gretz could not present the budget on Feb. 5 as initially planned and had it moved forward to Feb. 12. But with the roads still treacherous from Tuesday’s snowstorm, board members had decided to hold the meeting via Zoom.
Charles Rittenhouse (Cunningham) was not able to connect via Zoom and was only able to listen in by phone and could neither participate in the discussion or vote on the final package.
This meant they would have to find a number at least three members who would vote to approve whatever they came up with.
“Why are we working backwards?” Kelley asked at one point. “We should start by asking for what we need and then go from there. The School Board does not set the tax rate. It’s our job to communicate the district’s needs.”
Reed argued that they needed to cultivate their relationship with the Board of Supervisors. “I just personally think the relationship piece with the boards is better off with a little bit lower number, and we still communicate, and just because we don’t ask for it doesn’t mean this is not important to the long-term plan of FCPS”.
They began shifting line items up and down the budget spreadsheet, chipping away at the totals. Some were relatively easy cuts. The district can, for example, live another year without a communications officer.
Others were much harder, particularly when it came to health insurance.
For the last several years, the budget has been structured to absorb health insurance increases, but Reed questioned how long they could continue to do so.
“We’re going to have trouble building out staffing needs to get this school district staffed to an optimal position if we continue to eat big-time dollars every single year, especially in insurance,” he said.
Andre Key (Rivanna) countered, “If we pass on the health insurance, any portion, our lowest paid employees…that three percent raise won’t be a raise.”
In the end, the budget came out looking much the same as when they went in. The final number was $1,896,979, around $289,000 less than Gretz’s proposal. The budget passed on a vote of 3-1, with Rittenhouse absent and Pullen voting no.
Next, the budget goes to the Board of Supervisors, who will make their own decision on what and how much of the proposal to keep or cut. This final figure will be included in the final vote on the county budget in mid-April.
