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[quote=ChenLing][quote=Anonymous]Chen - how would you address the county and state drastically UNDERfunding APS?

Youngkin is cutting the budget in times when our COL costs are rising. 
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Fortunately the GA passed a bill that adds some money back to schools. Unfortunately, the state budget is only ~13% of our revenue. For FY24, Virginia is the 44th state in terms of how well it funds public education. If it was merely average, we would have a budget surplus. The budget is unlikely to drastically change while Youngkin is governor.

The county is supposed to fund 80% of our revenue -- by State policy, so when they say "we're raising teacher salaries by 3%", they expect Arlington County to pay for 80% of that. Unfortunately, the County only pays about ~75% of our budget.

We have a revenue sharing agreement with the County -- we get 46.8% of tax receipts. We're one of two NoVA school systems that do this -- others do a need-based budget and negotiate with their counties every year (Falls Church City does a hybrid). When times are good, this is good for APS -- we have enough money. When times are bad (2007/8 recession, loss of commercial tax revenue post-Covid), not so much. I encourage everyone to email countyboard@arlingtonva.us and speak up on fully funding our schools.

I know I harp on the 20% more we pay per student compared to our neighbors. Half of that is because we pay debt service on school bonds using our operating budget. Neighbors like Alexandria and Montgomery County do not (CIP budgets and bond payments are part of the county budget and not the school). I'm working on identifying the other half. The reason is that when the School Board goes to the County Board and asks for more money, the response is often to point out how we already pay more per student and can APS please be more efficient first please.[/quote]

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