School Board Regular Meeting

Dustin WrightstaffAnd then you can see the projected numbers that we have for not only our current year, for FY 2027, which we're talking about tonight, and then FY 2028. We will have more information later on this year when Fairfax County releases their budget about some of the enrollment projections, but right now these are the numbers that we've been operating on. Again, if we need to make those adjustments throughout the budget process this spring, we will do so. You can see a graphic representation of the operating costs for FCPS. And so through last fiscal year, FY 2025, you can see the trend that it's been on. So not too dissimilar from the upward trend of our average daily membership. And then you can compare when you put those two together, you'll see the impact that it's having on our tuition costs as it continues to increase over time.

of information, which I think is good for everyone to know, is just how our general fund here in the city of Fairfax is dispersed to our schools and how that compares to our partners. So the city of Fairfax allocates a substantial portion of its general fund to the schools, and this reflects the city's longstanding commitment to education. And you can see some helpful regional context with some of our peer jurisdictions. The last slide before we wrap up is a preview of the calendar and what will happen next in this budget process. So tonight you're hearing the proposed budget. And there's a few key timeline spots throughout the next few months that I think is important for everyone to know about.

Yeah, I think that's a great question. have a caveat in my response to say I'm not going to speak for Fairfax County, but we typically see through their budget process is when you're seeing a lot of their enrollment projections. So on January 22nd, I think we're going to have a really good idea of what they're projecting for the next year. So the numbers that were lower than they were expecting, I think on this previous chart, and if we can just stay on the slides for the time being, that I think that would be helpful for everyone. When we saw their September enrollment of 177,000, that what they projected in their budget was somewhere around 180 or 181. And that was in the budget that came out

I mean, in previous divisions I've worked at, when they look at estimating what health and medical benefits are, they typically look at a 10% increase each year. Now, that's probably on the high side, and you hope it comes in lower, but somewhere around 5% to 8% of costs increasing per year just to keep doing what you're doing in the previous year is not unheard of in school divisions. So I think those are some of the, as you saw, hopefully in the Fairfax County budget process last year, they were actually reducing it throughout the budget process. So even with that, you still saw the increase in overall costs. So it's mostly personnel and the benefits and the support and the salaries that go with them.