fy 15 operating budget presentation narrative...fy 2015 proposed school board operating budget...

FY 2015 Proposed School Board Operating Budget Presentation

Drafted and Presented by Eric Hornberger and Jill Turgeon 1

Now that we have had an opportunity to present the School Board’s FY 2015 Proposed

Capital Budgets . . .

We are pleased to also present to you the Loudoun County School Board’s FY 2015

Proposed Operating Budget to provide high quality, public education to over 73,000 students

through over 10,000 employees in 87 school facilities in the coming year. As you know, a strong

public education system is the backbone of any modern society. It is responsible for cultivating

both a responsible citizenry and competitive workforce. It is also responsible for helping our

youngest citizens better maximize their human potential. These are indeed lofty aims but ones

our dedicated staff embrace as core to our educational mission.

This budget aims to maintain the high quality services that the residents of Loudoun

County have come to expect from their public school system. It continues to keep funding

focused on the classroom where it belongs. It establishes a framework to compensate our

employees in such a way as to improve our competitiveness with surrounding jurisdictions and

correct imbalances in our salary scales. It provides adequate staffing to serve a larger student

population and the opening of three new schools. It also reflects our need as a school system

to address significant technological challenges in our infrastructure, as well as undertake a few



modest new initiatives to continue to move us forward. It is the product of a process that began

nearly a year ago that only culminated in the School Board’s adoption of a budget less than two

weeks ago.

You will receive copies of several documents this evening. First is an Executive Summary

of the School Board’s Proposed Operating Budget that highlights modifications made to the

Superintendent’s recommended budget. You will also receive a complete booklet containing

the School Board’s Questions and Answer information amassed in our budget review process to

date in our effort to better understand the staffing and financial needs of our school system in

the coming year proposed by the Superintendent. Copies of these documents and many more

are already available electronically on the LCPS website for access by the general public. As

always, our staff stand ready to assist in responding to any questions that you have to help you

better understand what we are proposing. Your questions should be directed through the

County Administrator’s Office that then will be directed to our Business and Financial Services

Department.

Thank you for providing us with an opportunity to share our proposed budget for the

coming year with you.



As part of our annual reporting requirements to the Virginia Board of Education, we

must provide a summary of our operating budget through six state‐defined categories. These

are: Instruction, Administration, Attendance & Health, Pupil Transportation, Operations &

Maintenance, Technology, and Facilities.

Nearly 77% of the proposed expenditures in our budget remain dedicated to Instruction.

A much smaller but growing share of our proposed expenditures is related to Technology. This

is deeply reflective of both the times in which we live and the critical juncture that we are at as

a county in tending to our technology infrastructure. It is also not dissimilar from many other

school systems across the Commonwealth and indeed the nation, as the use of and

dependence on technology becomes more common in all sectors of society.

Combined, our proposed budget represents a $106.1 million increase or 12.6% more

than the current year. While at first glance this may appear ambitious, a careful review of the

context of this year’s proposed budget, as well as its components, proves otherwise.



In the last two years, the LCPS budget grew by a total of $97.8 million. Nearly have of

this amount, or $48 million, was contained within two additional liabilities that were added to

the School Board’s operating budget in FY 13. Roughly $34 million of this went to finance VRS

catch‐up and make‐up payments. The other $14 million went to finance the assumption of

OPEB responsibility into the LCPS operating budget. This left only $49.8 million to

accommodate additional growth in our student population of 5,190 students, the opening of

three new elementary schools and one high school, and modest pay increases for employees

after a period of stagnating salaries that was in part offset by additional, targeted state support

last year. That is an effective allotment of less than $9,600 per student ‐ well below the Cost

per Pupil at the lowest point of the economic downturn ‐ without even factoring for inflation.

Taken over a much longer view, the effects of the economic downturn and restricted

fiscal environment are also quite evident. The School Board’s proposed budget this year is

$204.1 million more than its appropriated budget in FY 09 or an increase of 27.4% over six

years. During this same time, our public school system became responsible for serving 16,224

more students or a 28.5% growth in our student population. This is, of course, in addition to

opening 12 additional school facilities, assuming responsibility for OPEB liability with an Annual



Required Contribution (ARC) liability valued at $34 million that was previously not included

within the LCPS budget, and inflation well in excess of 10% over the six year period.

Despite significant efforts at reform, deferments had to be made in a number of areas

as the result of a curtailment in funding. Class sizes were increased not once but twice, system‐

wide, during the economic downturn. Technology upgrades and school‐based computer

refreshments were postponed. School bus weren’t replaced and new school buses were not

added to the fleet. Central administrative staffing that is critical to the ongoing operational

effectiveness of the school system were not expanded.

Further deferment in these expenditures is no longer prudent as they are already being

felt in the classroom. Teacher and student computers frequently freeze up or entire networks

crash, interrupting instructing and frustrating learning. School buses spend increased time

undergoing costly repairs or worse, break down on the side of the road. Vacant teaching,

support and administrative positions lapse or qualified personnel accept positions elsewhere,

as the processing of required paperwork piles‐up on the desks of the same number of

employees in the central office as six or more years ago, when our workforce needs were

significantly smaller.

We are a growing school system serving a community with high expectations rightly set

for their students and the education they receive through their public schools. We can no

longer afford to further postpone or avoid necessary expenditures to move our school system

forward. As our economy has clearly improved, so too should our ability to invest in our public

school system as a county.



LCPS maintains one of the lowest Cost per Pupil rates in Northern Virginia. This is

evidence of our continued efforts to remain both efficient and affordable, especially in light of

our disproportionate dependence on residential real estate assessments for funding. At

$12,710 – the average Cost per Pupil reflected in the proposed budget – LCPS likely will retain

the second lowest Cost per Pupil in the region, and still below the rate prior to the economic

downturn. Again, this is despite several years of inflation, required VRS rate increases, rising

health insurance costs, and the opening of 12 new schools.

By any comparable measure of efficiency commonly used within the field of public

education, the proposed budget is in fact both reasonable and responsible. It is also a product

of the fiscal context and operational realities in which it was developed.



So what does an additional $106.1 million in the proposed budget afford? Here is a

breakdown of those major areas of additional budgeted expenditures. They also reflect the

budgetary priorities of the School Board and, we believe, the broader Loudoun community that

we serve.

Keeping compensation competitive for our employees and accommodating continued

growth in both students and school facilities are clearly the top budget priorities this year.

Together, they represent 78% of the proposed budget increase. However, the School Board is

not satisfied with our current average class size, especially at the elementary level that is now

the highest in the metro Washington area. Reducing our average elementary class size is also a

significant priority and represents a better means of accommodating student population

growth to affect educational outcomes.

As previously indicated, technology is another area of expenditures where additional

investments are crucial. This will be further elaborated later in our presentation.



Finally, we are proposing a few modest new initiatives to continue to better meet the

educational needs of our students and provide greater opportunities to maximize their

potential.



Personnel costs are by far the largest expenses within any school system. LCPS is no

different. Our employees are key to our ongoing success. Keeping their compensation

competitive not only fairly rewards them for their work but also enables us to recruit the best.

Of our over 10,000 employees, over 93% are school‐based employees…the largest ratio

of all the schools in the metro Washington area. We are very proud of the fact that our staffing

resources are focused on the educational needs of our students within our schools.



Salary increases strategically afforded through a new salary schedule is a high priority to

the School Board in order to enhance our competitiveness with surrounding jurisdictions to

ensure to attract and retain the best employees

Nearly 40% of the increased expenditures for employee compensation are comprised of

expenditures that are beyond our control. The mandated 1% conversion of VRS, the required

VRS rate increase plus the 6% in health insurance increases, all account for more than $16

million dollars or nearly 2% of our overall budget. Again, these are mandated expenditures.

The 3.9% average increase in salary for our employees will not only provide the

competitive edge needed in employing the best teachers, it will provide the first step increase

since FY 09.



We can see here where Loudoun County ranks among our neighboring counties with

regards to salaries. Since the economic downturn, the competitiveness of teacher pay has

slipped considerably in Loudoun County. This is particularly the case towards the middle of our

teacher salary scale, where a LCPS teacher with a Master’s degree and 9 years of experience is

now paid the least in the region. This is critical crossroads, because teachers at this level are at

a point in their career where they offer mentoring to incoming teachers and providing

significant support to developing teachers, yet the same time, may be considering a move to a

nearby county with better salaries. This is NOT a time where we want to be losing these

valuable resources to neighboring jurisdictions. It should be noted that teachers at this level

can make over $5,500 more by simply crossing our southern border to Prince William County.

While it is true that we have yet to see a mass exodus of teachers, by the time we would

see it, it would largely be too late. That is a risk that simply is not worth taking. Nor is it one

that fairly recognizes the value of our teachers in the community.



We live in an area where we regularly interact with our neighboring counties.

Remaining competitive in our salary offerings is a proactive means by which we can attract and

retain the best and brightest within our workforce. This is especially critical in an area as fast

growing as Northern Virginia, where neighboring jurisdictions compete to fill very similar

positions on a regular basis and seek to fill hundreds of additional new positions each year. Our

proposed salary scales are designed to enhance this competitiveness, focusing particularly at

the lower half of the salary schedule, where most hires and transfers actually occur. We realize

that we cannot afford to make significant improvement at all levels, so therefore we have

chosen to prioritize making more dramatic correction to the salary schedule where we feel the

greatest benefit can be realized. The new salary schedule does this by lifting the “sag” that has

developed in the bottom of the salary scale. This is also the area where salaries are the lowest

and employees often find it the most difficult to afford to live in the communities that they

serve.

You will notice from the FY 14 compensation levels featured in the chart as dotted lines

that Loudoun currently lags considerably behind both Fairfax and Prince William Counties in all

but the first few steps on the scale. This is a common feature between all four of our salary



schedules – teachers, classified, auxiliary and administrators. However, by Step 10, Loudoun no

longer maintains its competitive edge and the difference in pay ranges from $1,500 to $5,500

and grows to between $2,000 and over $7,000 by Step 24.

The new salary schedule effectively lifts this “sag” in the scale and significantly improves

the competitiveness of teacher salaries until about Step 10 with Fairfax and Step 16 with Prince

William County, at which point, Loudoun again begins to again lose its competitive edge. It is

important to note that the vast majority of employees are either hired or transfer prior to Step

16 when they can more easily transfer their levels of service to other jurisdictions. It is also

important to note that the new salary schedule does not fix everything. Loudoun will still lag

significantly behind our neighbors in compensation at the higher half of the salary scales.

Nevertheless, it is definitely a step in the right direction.



The School Board’s new administrative salary scale seeks to enhance our

competitiveness with surrounding jurisdictions, again, as in the previous slide…focusing on the

lower potion of the salary scale. You can see that our current offerings, shown by the dotted

lines, that the LCPS administrative salary, shown in red, is fairly flat for the first 6 years. And

while Fairfax and Prince William start at lower salaries in year one, by year three for Prince

William, and year five for Fairfax, those salaries surpass that of Loudoun. By Step 6, our salaries

for elementary principals are $6,100 to $9,600 dollars LESS than our neighbors, with that

discrepancy expanding to over $10,500 for high school principals at that same level. Towards

the end of the scale, at Step 17, that gap widens to nearly $14,000 for an elementary principal

and nearly $19,000 for a high school principal. Our salary proposal, while somewhat aggressive,

will still not address the gap at the upper end of the scale, but it is a considerable move forward

for our administrators placed at the lower third of the salary scale.



Accommodating an increasing student population requires additional expenditures at all

levels of our operations to maintain the same level of service. Without the addition of a

sufficient number of new teachers, we will effectively increase our average class sizes

throughout the system. Without the addition of necessary support personnel, the effective

delivery of our services would be impeded or thwarted altogether, not only for those additional

2,375 students but the other 70,000 already accommodated in our schools.

However, this in the coming year, we are not only challenged with serving a greater

number of students, but we are opening 3 new schools this fall through which to better serve

our growing student population. It has been several years since LCPS opened three schools at

the same time, and as our previous presentation indicated, we do not expect to do so again

anytime in the near future. We are in many ways still getting caught‐up in a backlog of new

school construction that developed during a period of rapid population growth throughout the

last decade, followed by the economic downturn when new school projects were largely

suspended. Opening three new schools – Cardinal Ridge Elementary School near South Riding,

Trailside Middle School in northern Ashburn, and Rock Ridge High School in southern Ashburn –

is a significant undertaking that requires additional facility‐based staffing, not just the staffing



associated with the students who will be attending them. It is important to note that, given our

backlog in school construction, all three of these new schools will either open at capacity, or are

located in an area where facility capacity will be met within only a few years. Long gone are the

days in Loudoun of opening new schools under half capacity! These schools are desperately

needed, as are the staffing that goes along with them, and cannot be delayed in opening,

regardless of the fiscal restraints we face.



As one would expect, the vast majority of costs associated with accommodating growth

in both student population and new school facilities is in new positions. This chart depicts the

number of new positions budgeted for the two different types of growth we face this year.

They are presented according to their type to better illustrate our continued focus on school‐

based staffing that has enabled us to lead the region in this area of our operations.

You will notice that in accommodating both the growth in enrollment and the number

of schools added to our system, most new positions are school‐based. The well over two‐thirds

of the new positions are directly related to direct instruction, including specialized special

education classrooms opening in some our new schools. Only 7.8 new positions or 2.3% are

considered non‐school‐based, among those directly related to accommodating continued

growth.



During the recent economic downturn, class sizes were raised twice system‐wide in

order to make up for revenue shortfalls. This has pushed Loudoun County to have the highest

average elementary class size in all of the schools in the greater Washington Metro area.

Class size, particularly at the elementary level, has a significant impact on student

learning, as more one‐on‐one attention is required to meet the educational potential of each

and every student. Smaller class sizes allow for more individualized instruction, better

educational opportunities for children with special needs, and a better working environment

for teachers. Reducing average ES class sizes must be a high priority.



At the start of 2014, over 38% of our Grades 1 through 5 classrooms had 25 or more

students per classroom. The proposed FY 15 Budget effectively reduces the elementary class

size by an average of one student from a realized average of 23.4 to a budgeted average of 22.4

based on enrollment projections. This should not only reduce our overall average class sizes but

also enable fewer than 9% of our classrooms to exceed 24 students.

It is important to note that even reducing our average elementary class size to 22.4

students per classroom places it second from the highest in the metro Washington area. It

would require twice this level of investment to move to the middle of the pack, so to speak,

where our secondary school average class sizes can be found. The proposed reduction in

average elementary class size is clearly justified and positions Loudoun for greater instructional

effectiveness and higher student achievement in the future.

Our efforts to reduce elementary class sizes require the funding of 90 new classroom

teaching positions at a cost of $7.5 million, 3 new teachers of PE, music and art at the cost of

$0.2 million. The increase in teachers will result in the need for fewer Teacher Assistant

positions, as there will be fewer overcrowded classrooms requiring additional staffing support.



A full reduction in the average class size at the elementary level by one student requires a

budget increase of $7.1 million, comprised entirely of the cost of hiring new teachers.



A significant growth area in our budget this year is related to technology.

Unfortunately, it is also an area that is often misunderstood due to the complexities commonly

associated with it, especially in the area of software, software development, and technical

support. We have tried to bring greater clarity to the specific area of technology in our budget

by highlighting them in five somewhat distinct improvement areas – Software Implementation,

Infrastructure, Computer Refresh, Instructional Software, and New Initiatives.

REQUIRED SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION

As I know you are already painfully aware, the rollout of new, rather systemic and

integrated software in both the county government and our public schools is an enormous

undertaking. It began long before most of us were elected and is something that we simply

cannot avoid. It requires a significant investment of both personnel and funding. LCPS has

already been forced to accommodate the mid‐year hiring of additional personnel this year for

the variety of software being developed and implemented to support business and educational

operations well into the future, as has the county. In addition, we will need to increase our

staffing dedicated to the development of the Oracle ERP, Hyperion and the Phoenix Student



Information System (SIS) software that will enable us to better track data and information for

everything from expenditures to enrollment. These additional positions are required to keep

this complex implementation on schedule and ensure that it ultimately provides the level of

detail to streamline our operations in the future. A total of $1.3 million in 13 new positions is

needed.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Another area of deep concern is the inadequate bandwidth and network capacity for

both students and staff. A significant infrastructure upgrade is required to increase speed,

capacity, and reliability of internet and shared instructional and business software applications.

The infrastructure upgrade is critical as the Virginia Department of Education now requires all

SOL assessments to be done by computer and within a very short testing window. Our

Department of Technology Services is looking to significantly enhance the district’s bandwidth,

effectively tripling it over the course of the next year from its current 500 megabytes to 2

gigabytes. This will require investments of both equipment and personnel to install and

maintain. It also requires an increasing level of service personnel to adequately respond to the

increasing use of technology throughout our 87 schools. However, it is also something the

School Board knows that we now must make a high priority. A total of $2.3 million primarily in

20 new positions is needed.

COMPUTER REFRESH

Computer refreshes are critical for sustaining modern technology in the classroom. For

several years, during the economic downturn, replacement of aging computers in our schools

was postponed. However, we are now exceeding a seven‐year life‐cycle on many of our

computers that no longer function effectively as they once did. Last year, we were able to

begin a computer refresh effort in 47 of our schools with the most outdated computers. Our

staff had originally envisioned completing the refresh cycle in those schools last year but

financial constraints led to it only being partially completed. Funding is included in the

proposed budget to complete this refresh cycle in those 47 schools primarily through the

replacement of laptop computers used in movable carts rather than stationary computers in



classrooms to both further reduce cost and increase instructional effectiveness. A total of $7.2

million primarily in equipment is needed.

NEW INSTRUCTION SOFTWARE

A fundamental part of education today involves the use of both sophisticated and

engaging software programs to better target instruction. In this year's budget, funding is

provided to better use software to enhance instructional effectiveness. Interactive

Achievement is a software package that is designed to better enable teachers to adjust

instruction to meet the increasing rigor associated with the Standards of Learning in the core

subject areas of language arts, math, science and social science. New state SOL tests focus not

only the mastery of subject area material but also its application through the demonstration of

more advanced levels of critical thinking. We need to give our teachers the tools to enable

them to prepare their students for the rigors of the revised Standards of Learning.

Similarly, we have been using the same mathematics software in our elementary

schools that was purchased decades ago and is largely no longer being used in the classroom.

Funding is being provided to gain access to new mathematics software (iReady & Dreambox) to

enable our elementary students to master basic skills needed to meet the more rigorous

demands of the Math SOL assessments and more importantly, to move forward confidently

into higher levels of mathematics that are needed to prepare them for the STEM fields of the

future. A total of $1 million is needed for software purchases and contracts in these two areas.

NEW TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES

Finally, also included in the budget is funding to further pilot two different alternative

paths to 1‐to‐1 computing that we know is the way of the future in education. The first involves

the expansion of a standardized 1‐to‐1 initiative at Eagle Ridge MS that began last year with a

third of the sixth grade class and to launch a related, but slightly different, standardized 1‐to‐1

pilot initiative at Sterling MS. The other is to encourage our teachers to bring their own

computing devices to school to use in enhancing their productivity, communicating with

students, developing lesson plans for use to enhance their instruction. The School Board



envisions providing a reimbursement of a portion of approved computer purchases by teachers

for this purpose. This BYOD initiative will also enable us to better test our infrastructure for

increased computer usage in our schools and orient us to a more device agnostic posture that

is, in and of itself, a critical skill for the 21st Century. Once in place, these two pilots will provide

a better opportunity for us to assess the right approach for Loudoun County to increasingly

integrate the use of technology both inside and outside of the classroom into our instructional

paradigm. A total of $2.2 million primarily for equipment purchases or reimbursements is

needed.

Falling behind in our improvements to technology is simply not something we can

afford. That said, the School Board chose to not pursue the rollout of a system‐wide 1‐to‐1

technology initiative that was recommended by the Superintendent through the use of debt

financing. Rather we would like to see if such an initiative can be better focused and afforded

through future operating budgets. The proposed budget was developed specifically with this

vision in mind, as well as our more critical short‐term technology needs.



For the past two budget cycles, the School Board has focused on identifying and

addressing budgetary inefficiencies and avoided the implementation of new initiatives. While

this same focus on addressing inefficiencies was taken during this current budgetary process,

we found that it was time to introduce some needed initiatives.

Full‐day kindergarten for our Title 1 eligible schools is the first of these initiatives. While

there has been considerable debate over the importance of Full Day Kindergarten, the benefits

of these services provided to the neediest of our students and the schools they attend cannot

be denied. This budget includes an extension of FDK to five additional elementary schools with

35% or more students receiving free and reduced lunches.

The second of the proposed new initiatives is the Elementary School Foreign Language

Immersion Pilot. This pilot program offers parents a choice in educational offerings for their

children. Two first grade classes in each of three elementary schools will host this pilot during

its first year that will bring full second language immersion to both native Spanish speakers and

those children seeking increased exposure to the Spanish language at an early age. This pilot

will be expanded along with its student cohort, eventually encompassing grades 1 through 5.



The flexibility of this program design allows for additional language options to be included in

the future.

Finally, Dual Enrollment Credentialing is a step that Loudoun County needs to be making

in order to offer our students the best in educational opportunities. Dual enrollment provides a

way for students to earn college credits while still in high school and significantly more widely

accepted than Advanced Placement (AP) courses at most colleges. However, in order to offer

this benefit to our students, our teachers must first be credentialed to teach the courses. This

initiative covers the cost of the professional development for this specialized credentialing that

will initially focus on core instruction areas, as well as computer science.



As previously mentioned, our proposed budget is the product of the fiscal context and

operational realities in which it was developed. It requires a better understanding of the

increasing liabilities and requirements placed on the school system in recent years to better

understand the rationale behind what is being proposed.

VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEM (VRS)

Necessary changes at the state level to make VRS more fiscally sound amount to

relatively large increases in our operating budgets without enhancing our efforts to effectively

educate more students or adequately compensate our employees. In the FY 13 budget this

increase in required VRS funding – both “catch‐up” payments, so to speak, for decades of

under‐funding as well as “make‐up” payments postponed payments during the economic

downturn – amounted to an increase in $34 million in our budget that continued to be included

in our baseline budget in FY 14 and again this year.

OTHER POST EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS (OPEB)



Additionally, last year OPEB was effectively transferred into our operating budget two

years ago when it was previously contained within the county’s budget. While an overall smart

move that directly let to our own OPEB reform efforts that effectively trimmed a $34 million

inherited annual liability to only $12 million, it has nevertheless come as an increased liability

within our operating budget again this year and every year hereafter.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS

New state and federal requirements in variety of areas require increased attention in

our budget. Increased rigor on SOL assessments, new safety and security protocols that need

to be filed annually for each of ours school, and the new graduation requirement for the Class

of 2016 to complete at least one online course, and additional health insurance reporting and

taxes associated with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) all effectively

increase the demands on our budget without additional state or federal support to offset them.

These new requirements, in addition to the additional liabilities, are expected to be afforded

entirely through an increase in the local funding effort or must be made‐up for in reduction in

other areas of our operations.



The assumption of additional liabilities and requirements, in addition to continued

growth, is not the only factor associated with an increasing LCPS budget. The changing

demographic nature of that growth also has a direct budgetary impact on our public school

system. This chart shows the changing nature of our student population over the past six‐year

period alone. You will notice that while the student population within LCPS grew by 28.5% over

the last six years, the needs of those students have grown even more significantly, especially

those who are from economically challenged households. The rate of growth for students

receiving free or reduced lunch has more than double that of total student enrollment. Less

dramatic but even more costly in terms of the resources required to meet student needs, the

English Language Learner (ELL) and Special Education (SPED) student population grew more

than 25% faster than the total student population. As first brought to your attention last year,

this change in the nature of our student population actually means that our school system is

providing a greater level of service required to meet the increasing needs of its students, not

just to keep pace with its growing student population. This changing nature of our student

demographics directly impacts our Cost per Pupil and rivals inflation in necessitating continued

budget increases even if our student population was not actually growing.



Despite these budgetary challenges, the School Board has been diligently working in

cooperation with our staff to identify long‐term cost savings through strategic reform efforts.

Last year, we spent considerable time describing our efforts to modify health insurance plans

provided to our employees, redefine benefits eligibility, and limit OPEB liability to meet our

Annual Required Contribution (ARC). These efforts have produced considerable long‐term cost

savings for the residents of the county and ensure that we can continue to offer competitive

benefits to our employees for years to come. OPEB reform alone saved an estimated $158

million in future financial obligations. For the last two years, we have pointed to the fact that

our efforts to restrict the addition of non‐school‐based staffing have led to LCPS maintaining

the highest percentage of school‐based staffing levels in the metro Washington area. This is

something that our Proposed FY 15 Budget continues. Additionally our efforts to re‐evaluate

existing school walk‐zones this year increased the number of students walking to school by over

15% at a annual savings of $2.8 million in transportation costs. This has enabled us to mitigate

increasing transportation costs that have not kept pace with student growth.



As the School Board began its budget process this year, we undertook a survey to help

inform our efforts. Well over 10,000 county residents responded to the survey aimed at

identifying their priorities in key discretionary areas of LCPS’ budget. Roughly 90% of survey

respondents were parents of children currently attending our school and 15% of those who

responded were school employees, as many employees who responded are also parents.

Another 9% of respondents, however, had no current connection to LCPS.

Competitive Salaries and Smaller elementary school Class Sizes were among the top

budget areas cited by a majority of 10,153 survey respondents for funding increases, as was

STEM and Career and Technical Education (CTE). All four categories also feature prominently

among the School Board’s operating and capital budget priorities.



The School Board’s Proposed FY 15 Budget requires $949.7 million in funding from a

variety of sources. However, nearly 2/3rds of the income needed to fund our budget or an

$84.9 million increase over the current year, is required from local revenue. Our public schools

are becoming increasingly reliant on the local funding effort. Increased local revenue is needed

to maintain competitive compensation for our employees, keep pace with continued growth

and to take back strategic ground lost during the economic downturn, continue to improve

technology within our schools, and even undertake some modest new initiatives.

We recognize this is a significant request but one we feel is needed to adequately fund

our public school system this year. We have tightened our belt first out of necessity during the

economic downturn and then somewhat voluntarily in an effort to lighten the local tax burden.

However, eroding competitiveness in the compensation we offer our employees, the need to

continue to provide for increasing student enrollment and the opening of new schools, and

deferments in necessary investments that are no longer reasonably possible and threaten the

operating effectiveness of our schools require us to request a more significant level of funding

this year over the previous two years.



We recognize the need to balance competing priorities. However, there is a growing

concern that public education is becoming less of a priority in Loudoun County. Many,

including the School Board, believe that maintaining a top quality public education system is

critical to Loudoun’s future success. We look forward to working with you to determine how

we might achieve this common goal.

Thank you.

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