By Ashley McLeod, Staff Writer
Feb 13, 2015, 17:04
CHESTERFIELD — The Chesterfield County School Board posted its proposed budget for the fiscal year 2016, which would allow for a 2% increase for all employees in the school system.
The proposed $578.5 million budget is $11.2 million more than the 2015 fiscal budget.
The proposed budget will include the 2% raise for employees, funding for health savings account increases, as well as remediation services and tuition reimbursement for advanced placement or dual enrollment classes. The budget also allows for a decrease of the pupil to teacher ratio, allowing for smaller classroom sizes, adds to trip funding for high schools, and will allow for the purchase of new buses in order to upgrade older equipment.
Almost 56% of the proposed budget will go toward salaries and approximately 22.5% towards benefits.
The exact number for the proposed budget is $578,528,000, with $410,207,800 going towards instruction, $57,687,900 to operations and maintenance, $42,860,100 to debt services, $33,337,100 to transportation, $13,248,000 to technology, $12,956,600 to administration and $8,230,500 to attendance and health.
Money for the budget will come mostly from the county itself, at a total of 46%. The remainder will come from the state and federal government, sales tax revenue, and a small amount from prior year’s savings.
One thing you will not find in the proposed budget is funding for new initiatives, with money instead going to those already in place, such as Chromebooks and digital classwork.
“Our efforts will focus on providing support for initiatives put in place during the past three years,” said Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome.
The board will vote on the budget at the February 24 meeting. If passed, the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors will then hold a public hearing on the topic at their March 25 meeting.
The proposed budget is not set in stone, as a percentage of the money will be coming from the state. The General Assembly has not yet released a spending plan for the governor’s proposed state budget.
