FCPS Budget: How much to teachers?

[Anonymous]

In the thread on the superintendent, someone claimed that 90% of the budget goes to salary and a “vast majority” of that goes to teachers and instructional aids. That seemed like an overstatement. When challenged on these “stats” someone replied that 95% of 90% of the budget goes to teachers and instructional aids. They cited this link:

https://www.fcps.edu/fy-2026-budget-toolkit

I looked and looked, and I can’t find anything close to numbers that support the claim that 81% of the FCPS goes exclusively to teacher and instructional aid salary. Can someone help me out here? What percentage of the FCPS budget is teacher and instructional aid salary? Just teachers and instructional aids. Not admin or Gatehouse.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, 95% of 90% would be 85.5%.


What percentage of the FCPS budget is teacher and instructional aid salary? Just teachers and instructional aids. Not admin or Gatehouse.

Is it really 85.5%?

[Anonymous]

Also, why is it so hard to figure this out? Is this really transparency when it’s so hard to find out what percentage of the budget is teacher pay?

I think this matters when “teacher raises” are blamed for tax increases. Where is the money going?

[Anonymous]

What you really need to look at is teachers/teacher's aides that have students assigned to their classes. FCPS loves to claim that 90+% of the budget goes directly to schools, but there are a lot of positions in schools anymore that do have have classroom responsibilities. Those are the positions that the county could cut back on if they were looking to trim back. Examples (Extra Assistant Principals, SOSAs, Deans, Special Ed Department Chairs, Resource teachers, etc.)

[Anonymous]

If you are absent and the county doesn't need a substitute to fill your position for the day maybe those jobs should be trimmed back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What you really need to look at is teachers/teacher's aides that have students assigned to their classes. FCPS loves to claim that 90+% of the budget goes directly to schools, but there are a lot of positions in schools anymore that do have have classroom responsibilities. Those are the positions that the county could cut back on if they were looking to trim back. Examples (Extra Assistant Principals, SOSAs, Deans, Special Ed Department Chairs, Resource teachers, etc.)

Excellent point. It would be nice to see a specific breakdown.

It seems pretty simple. What is the percentage of the budget that is strictly salary costs for the people who directly deliver instruction to students?

Why salary, and not training, benefits, “support”, and other associated costs? Because teachers and their “7% salary raise” are getting blamed for the budget shortfall.

In a way, when leadership and the SB say publicly “I want you to get a 7% raise” and then breaks the Fairfax County budget with loads of other expenses that are difficult to separate from actual teacher salaries, they make teachers the scapegoats. Not cool.

[Anonymous]

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DD86ZJ175C98/$file/FY26%20Proposed%20Budget%20Presentation%20FINAL.pdf

Here’s how I’m reading it:
Slide 7- 92.5% of staff in FCPS are school-based (teachers, IAs, custodians, office, principals, food services)
Slide8- 1.1% of staff in FCPS are central office management (HR, finance, instructional)
That leaves 6.4% for non-central office (leadership, bus drivers, maintenance workers, technicians, security,etc)

You’re looking for a breakdown by teacher/IA vs everyone else. It’s not broken down like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DD86ZJ175C98/$file/FY26%20Proposed%20Budget%20Presentation%20FINAL.pdf

Here’s how I’m reading it:
Slide 7- 92.5% of staff in FCPS are school-based (teachers, IAs, custodians, office, principals, food services)
Slide8- 1.1% of staff in FCPS are central office management (HR, finance, instructional)
That leaves 6.4% for non-central office (leadership, bus drivers, maintenance workers, technicians, security,etc)

You’re looking for a breakdown by teacher/IA vs everyone else. It’s not broken down like that.

That’s the point (in bold above). The press releases are “7% raises for teachers” and all those other costs are wrapped into “school-based staff”, teachers are the scapegoats. It would be helpful to see a clear breakdown. Specifically a breakdown on just salary.

[Anonymous]

You can figure it out by looking at the actual budget, not the presentation or highlight page. They list the number of each title there. You can also look at the WABE guide. Also look at last year’s budget questions. One of the supervisors asked a lot of this type question trying to lead them to differentiated pay. But FCPS isn’t interested in that. They wanted across the board raises for every employee. What baffles me is why teachers in the union didn’t advocate for that un their collective bargaining. They agreed to an across the board raise for all.

Also, I’m don’t think senior leadership team falls on the slide within “central office management.” So it is probably more than 1.1%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can figure it out by looking at the actual budget, not the presentation or highlight page. They list the number of each title there. You can also look at the WABE guide. Also look at last year’s budget questions. One of the supervisors asked a lot of this type question trying to lead them to differentiated pay. But FCPS isn’t interested in that. They wanted across the board raises for every employee. What baffles me is why teachers in the union didn’t advocate for that un their collective bargaining. They agreed to an across the board raise for all.

Also, I’m don’t think senior leadership team falls on the slide within “central office management.” So it is probably more than 1.1%

I don’t think FCPS is claiming that leadership falls within the “central office management.” Where are you seeing that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can figure it out by looking at the actual budget, not the presentation or highlight page. They list the number of each title there. You can also look at the WABE guide. Also look at last year’s budget questions. One of the supervisors asked a lot of this type question trying to lead them to differentiated pay. But FCPS isn’t interested in that. They wanted across the board raises for every employee. What baffles me is why teachers in the union didn’t advocate for that un their collective bargaining. They agreed to an across the board raise for all.

Also, I’m don’t think senior leadership team falls on the slide within “central office management.” So it is probably more than 1.1%

I don’t think FCPS is claiming that leadership falls within the “central office management.” Where are you seeing that?

Sorry, I wasn’t being clear at all- was typing quickly on the go. I was just trying to point out that the central office category is more than 1.1%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can figure it out by looking at the actual budget, not the presentation or highlight page. They list the number of each title there. You can also look at the WABE guide. Also look at last year’s budget questions. One of the supervisors asked a lot of this type question trying to lead them to differentiated pay. But FCPS isn’t interested in that. They wanted across the board raises for every employee. What baffles me is why teachers in the union didn’t advocate for that un their collective bargaining. They agreed to an across the board raise for all.

Also, I’m don’t think senior leadership team falls on the slide within “central office management.” So it is probably more than 1.1%

I don’t think FCPS is claiming that leadership falls within the “central office management.” Where are you seeing that?

Sorry, I wasn’t being clear at all- was typing quickly on the go. I was just trying to point out that the central office category is more than 1.1%

I guess it all depends on how you define “central office management.”
In your mind, what is and is not central office management? Which positions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can figure it out by looking at the actual budget, not the presentation or highlight page. They list the number of each title there. You can also look at the WABE guide. Also look at last year’s budget questions. One of the supervisors asked a lot of this type question trying to lead them to differentiated pay. But FCPS isn’t interested in that. They wanted across the board raises for every employee. What baffles me is why teachers in the union didn’t advocate for that un their collective bargaining. They agreed to an across the board raise for all.

Well, the numbers you listed above add up to 100 so which category would they fall into?

Also, I’m don’t think senior leadership team falls on the slide within “central office management.” So it is probably more than 1.1%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can figure it out by looking at the actual budget, not the presentation or highlight page. They list the number of each title there. You can also look at the WABE guide. Also look at last year’s budget questions. One of the supervisors asked a lot of this type question trying to lead them to differentiated pay. But FCPS isn’t interested in that. They wanted across the board raises for every employee. What baffles me is why teachers in the union didn’t advocate for that un their collective bargaining. They agreed to an across the board raise for all.

Also, I’m don’t think senior leadership team falls on the slide within “central office management.” So it is probably more than 1.1%

The union is not advocating for 7% across the board. Only for instructional and operations staff (members of the signed CBA). It's FCPS that wants everyone to get a "fair" piece of the pie (same people that are drafting the budget aren't covered by the CBA, so why wouldn't they include themselves and their Gatehosue peers?).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What you really need to look at is teachers/teacher's aides that have students assigned to their classes. FCPS loves to claim that 90+% of the budget goes directly to schools, but there are a lot of positions in schools anymore that do have have classroom responsibilities. Those are the positions that the county could cut back on if they were looking to trim back. Examples (Extra Assistant Principals, SOSAs, Deans, Special Ed Department Chairs, Resource teachers, etc.)

Respectfully I couldn’t disagree more. You’re drawing to straight of a line and thinking you’re trimming fat when in reality you’re actually adding more problem to the classroom teachers plate.


Take “extra” AP’s for instance, where you see waste I see someone who can now tackle behavioral concerns that impact my classroom environment. Insubordination has steadily risen in the last 5 years, without administrators the task of sorting out the issue falls squarely on me.


Or SpEd department chairs? When done correctly that job pays dividends in spades for the entire building, helps SpEd teachers find some semblance of balance, correctly supports the proper placement of students into the LRE. It’s by no means an easy job, I actually think it probably involves more work than most positions in the building. As a tired and over worked SpEd teacher I laughed when someone suggested I apply for the role in my building, it’s maybe the only gig that makes SpEd teachers go, “I guess it could be worse…”


My point is that it’s so quick and easy (and apparently in fashion) to blame all of the problems at the feet of “waste”. People are obsessed with the false idea that there’s just tons of jobs of lazy people collecting paychecks. I don’t know what that’s about but in 15 years of my educational career I’ve yet to actually come across a job that’s actually not necessary. Have I met people who suck at their jobs? Sure, but that’s a human condition, not an occupational one.