Politics & Government

FCCPS Approves FY13 Operating Budget

Budget includes full step increase, hiring of five new special education teachers.

The Falls Church City Public Schools board voted 6-1 Tuesday to approve their fiscal year 2013 operating budget. The $37.6 million operating budget is five percent more than the current operating budget. FCCPS will now pass their budget onto City Manager Wyatt Shields to be included in the city’s budget and will be debated over the next several weeks.

The budget also calls for a 7.4 percent increase in the city transfer, a first since 2008 for the school system.

Dr. Toni Jones as superintendent of FCCPS in January.

Find out what's happening in Falls Churchwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The budget includes the hiring of five new teachers K-8 and two high school special education teachers, a full step salary increase for all eligible employees beginning July 2012, plans for "hybrid learning" - blending high-quality teachers with digital content and tools, replacement/update of 11-year-old math and science textbooks for elementary and middle schools and complete wireless network for George Mason High and enhancement to Mary Ellen Henderson's network.

Board member Kieran Sharpe, the lone opposing vote, said the budget didn’t go far enough to correct the inequalities in compensation and program funding with neighboring school systems.

Find out what's happening in Falls Churchwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Jon Pepper, president of the Falls Church City Education Association said he is very satisfied with the budget the school board will present to city council. He believes the school board did an excellent job addressing the needs of both the students and school employees while keeping the increase in the city transfer as modest as possible. 

“It speaks volumes to the hard work of the school board that they were able to provide for needed additional staff, an all-important STEP increase, alterations in parts of the pay scale to keep us competitive and maintenance of benefits while still keeping the per-pupil spending at levels below that of 5-years ago,” Pepper said. “I feel that the board took the input of school staff to heart and this was evidenced throughout the budget process in the discussions of council and the lack of a formal speech/presentation by myself.  I know that upon arriving to school this morning, many teachers who followed the budget process offered me congratulations on the result.”

Pepper’s only concern with the budget is the consideration of passing on a VRS increase to VRS-1 employees.  He said he understands that it is somewhat controlled by state-level forces but the board needs to realize that many years ago, employees gave up salary increases in exchange for payment of VRS. 

“We are currently one of only a handful of divisions in the state that passes off a portion of VRS to our VRS-2 employees and it appears that we are headed towards a slippery slope with an all-important, although not that great compared to other states benefit,” he said.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here