Sitting down with student journalists from across the county, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent Jack Dale discussed issues impacting the county in the coming year, including the fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget, which will be finalized on Thursday.
Although Dale?s originally proposed FY 2011 budget featured drastic cuts, the majority of programs on the chopping block will remain in place next year.
?Most of the things we thought we would have to cut, turned out we won?t have to,? Dale said in reference to the originally proposed extensive cuts.
These recently rescued programs include elementary school band and orchestra programs, freshmen sports and elementary school language immersion programs, all of which will remain intact next school year.
However, summer school has been eliminated.
This surprising reduction in budget cuts was made possible by FCPS? recently reduced contribution requirement to the Virginia retirement system. Originally, FCPS expected to receive a $53 million increase in its contribution requirement, ?but in reality [the contribution payment] went down by about $70 million,? Dale said.
?Since we don?t have to pay that money into the state retirement system,? he said, ?we will be using that money to fund programs that we would have had to cut.?
Consequently, ?most everything in the schools will remain the same,? Dale said.
This comes a relief for students, parents and faculty concerned with the potential implications the cuts would have had on the quality of education.
Teachers pay increases will be frozen for the second consecutive year, a budgetary problem which Dale cites as ?simply unacceptable.?
?Next year, [teacher pay increases] is an issue that will be number one on my list,? Dale said.
Although FCPS ?dodged the bullet this year? by avoiding many of the sweeping cuts proposed in the original 2010- 2011 budget, ?the board of supervisors will have to make some tough decisions in the coming years,? as the reduction in retirement contributions is only a temporary solution to the budget crisis, Dale said.
These tough decisions will occur in two years, according to Dale, when the state will revaluate the amount that FCPS must contribute to the retirement system, likely causing another year of dramatic cuts to impact the county.