The Price of Education, Part 1: Establishing an estimated draft budget
“The Price of Education” is a new Floyd Times series that will follow the annual budgeting process of Floyd County Public Schools. Budget talks for the upcoming school year started officially on Feb. 9 and will continue throughout the spring. Fiscal year 2027 begins July 1.
“The Price of Education” is a new Floyd Times series that will follow the annual budgeting process of Floyd County Public Schools. Budget talks for the upcoming school year started officially on Feb. 9 and will continue throughout the spring. Fiscal year 2027 begins July 1.
Establishing an annual budget for the operation of Floyd County Public Schools is a year-round collaborative process that involves administrators of FCPS, the School Board, state department of education, and the Floyd County Board of Supervisors. The process of approving the budget is complex, and the draft budget sees several revisions before it is finalized to take effect at the beginning of July.
The process at FCPS formally begins in December with the release of the Governor’s budget, according to School Board Office Finance Director Darin Boothe, who noted that, at that point, administrators already have an idea of what the budget’s top priorities will be.
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“During the winter months, leadership meets with department heads to review expenditures, identify division needs based on School Board input, and incorporate feedback from stakeholders collected over the previous year,” Boothe said. This process helps inform the draft budget estimate, which is then presented to the School Board, as well as the public, during a regular School Board meeting, typically held in January or February.
FCPS Superintendent Jessica Cromer said, “the timing and logistics of the budget season are always a challenge. The Governor’s budget comes right before the Christmas holiday, and the turnaround time for a draft budget is quick.”
Following a public hearing where citizens can express their thoughts, and a vote by the School Board, the finalized estimate is submitted to the county’s Board of Supervisors to enter another process of approval by April 1, Boothe said.
Cromer explained that because of state Code requirements, which mandate the submission of a proposed budget to localities (such as the county) by April 1, FCPS officials “must use the Governor’s initial proposal in December as our starting point. However, since the General Assembly’s final approved budget often fluctuates in its funding levels and may not be finalized until after our deadline, or even well into the summer, we must manage the uncertainty of state-level shifts while meeting our local statutory obligations.”
The FY2027 budget estimate was presented to the School Board for the first time during its Feb. 9 meeting, and it totals about $29 million. Of that estimate, about $9.5 million is funding from the county level, which is its Required Local Effort. (For FY2026, the county contributed about $7.9 million to the schools’ budget.) Almost $19 million of the estimated budget is state and federal funding.
The top priorities of the budget for FY2027 are taking care of staff and replacing buses. Cromer said, “We are at a pivotal moment in the trajectory of our school division. We are vastly behind our neighboring school divisions in staff compensation (all staff, not just teachers), and our buildings and buses are aging.” She said, “If we do not receive funds to remedy the compensation and infrastructure issues, it will put us further behind and make it even more costly to catch up in the future.”
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Despite ranking 49th in the state for student performance on Standards of Learning tests in 2025, Floyd County has the lowest starting salary for teachers ($44,340) for FY2026 when compared to Montgomery ($52,832), Patrick ($50,989), Carroll ($50,444), Roanoke County ($47,938), and Franklin ($45,000).
Cromer said that in the most recent salary study by the Virginia Education Association, Floyd came in 124th out of 131 school divisions for starting salary rates. “Similarly, we ranked 122 at 5 years of experience, 126 at 10 years, 128 at 15 years, 128 at 20 years, 126 at 25 years, and 129 at 30 years.” She said, “It is going to take a commitment by the county to help support the need to increase staff compensation to be in line with the rest of the state.”
Though there are 38 FCPS buses that can complete routes, only eight of them are considered to be in “good condition.” Of the whole fleet, 11 are in need of being replaced now, and the average age of buses on a daily route is 13 years. The purchase of three buses is included in the FY2027 budget estimate, totaling about $480,000. “The cost of a new bus is approximately $160,000, making this another commitment we need the county to make for improvement,” Cromer said.
FCPS School Board and the Board of Supervisors have called a special meeting to begin at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 24, to review the draft estimate. Stay tuned to Floyd Times for coverage of this meeting and additional installments of “The Price of Education” throughout the budget season.
Find a full draft of the FCPS Draft Budget Estimate here.