001Mhm. >> Good evening and welcome to the December 16th, 2025 Matthews County School Board budget work session and public employee requests for 2026-2027 school budget. I'd like to call this meeting to order and Mrs. Hundley, may we have a roll call taken, please? Mr. Morgan? Present. Mrs. Diggs? Here. Mrs. Hodges? Here. Dr. Gibbs? Present. Thank you. Item number two, for public and employee requests for 2026-2027 school budget. Item 2.1, we are offering the opportunity for public budget requests. Currently, we do not have any public members of the county at our meeting. We will move to item 2.2, employee budget requests and survey. Dr. Daniel, would you like to address the survey? Um at this time, um we are not we don't have a representative from the faculty and staff advisory committee. Um that group I
002have um had asked that group back in October to uh work on developing a survey to pass out to members of the of the teaching staff. I'll follow up with the faculty and staff advisory to um see if we can either get that survey finalized and distributed to board members um to gain a little broader input on on budget. Yes, thank you. Why don't we go to item three, the review of 2026-2027 division budget requests to date uh with you, Dr. Daniel, our superintendent, and we'll give opportunity for uh the work session presentation to be made. Hi, good yeah I guess we're still in the afternoon. Um so I'll run through a couple things for the board work session. You all don't have a copy of this in in board docs yet. We'll um upload
003it to board docs. I was still working on it as of about um 2:55 today. Um so a couple pieces for for review in terms of our funding sources. Um so over the last several years, um I wanted to track and show kind [snorts] of where we've been with regards to state revenue, um federal revenues, local operating, and then other local, and then sort of our overall um totals. So a couple highlights um to note. Um so our state revenue um while it went up slightly this um past fiscal year, it is still a decline from where we were in FY23. Our projected the budget that we are operating off of right now is about a million dollars less in state revenue from where we were in FY23. Again, federal revenues are similar. So what
004we are anticipating, what we are operating off of in FY26 compared to where we were in FY23, is about a third um of that that federal revenue. Local operating, so that's the allocation from um the locality directly from Matthews County. So, while um that number is down slightly, about $600,000 from last year, keep in mind too that the Matthews County took over all of utility costs, maintenance costs. So, while those numbers aren't reflected in our budget, we are not responsible then for those expenditures. So, a big chunk of that um those costs all of those costs are now being absorbed um by the county. So, that's that FY25 to FY26 reduction is um I don't It's not misleading because the numbers are the numbers, but knowing what's behind those numbers and some of the decisions
005in place behind those numbers. Um and then the other other um funding other local revenue, um that varies from year to year. There are a lot of things that go into that other line item. That's That's rents, that's reimbursements for things. So, that that number tends to fluctuate. So, our overall um funding our overall um revenue sources is like we're down um to we're operating this year at about 15.9 million. Again, that's with maintenance and utility costs um being absorbed by the county. Um but still our overall operating costs have um have continued to um decline. Although the um Matthews contribution to the school division has continued to in reality increase. Okay. Um I tend to keep this in any of the presentations. Um it's the formula for determining the local composite index. I'm not
006going to turn this into a math lesson, um but basically those are the variables that go into um the um local composite index. So, it's local tax rates, local adjust adjusted gross income um as a proportion or a piece of um state value. So, it's local values against state values and then there's a population um component within that, too. So, this is the updated local composite index. So, each one of those um blue columns is a school division within Virginia. Um in yellow is Matthews, the light blue is Middlesex, the red is Gloucester, and orange is West Point with their respective local composite index figures. Um Matthews from the '24 the '24 '25 um composite index to the '26 '27 had the third highest increase in the state. Um so, we went from 0.5904 to
0070.6637. That's a significant um a significant jump. Um a big a big and it gets the local composite index gets adjusted every 2 years. Um so, to think about the the big change for us is in our student enrollment over the over those 2 years. So, we've dropped more kids, therefore the thinking part of that formula then becomes, okay, well real estate values have continued to go up. There's There's more ability to fund a fewer number of students in Matthews County is how that index is supposed to work. So, um Matthews in terms of funding going forward for the next biennium, our local composite is 0.6637. Some of our enrollment trends. So, from our September 30 count since 2003, so over about 22 years. So, about 22 years ago, we were just under 1,300 students.
008Um this year we were right at about 759 students. That's about a 40% decline in enrollments in in the those 22 years. Thinking about our staffing levels. Um so, we've we've talked a little bit about staffing during these these work sessions. So, um I developed a table with the help of Ms. Hundley um to look at our staffing across various departments. So, division staffing levels have gone from 19 to 20 down to 18. Um transportation. Um and these are full-time and part-time positions. So, transportation we end up with um depending on out placements um in various places, um we'll have a lot of part-time drivers. So, transportation has been 36, 31, and then we're currently at 38 right now. Um food services is we're down to 16. That food services count does include Meals on
009Wheels because our Meals on Wheels um folks that that whole um there's employees and all the all the accounts run through the school system. Um so, there those um folks are on our books. Um when we get to Mathews High School, Thomas Hunter Middle School, and Mathews Elementary School, you'll see two numbers. Um the number in parentheses is the licensed employees at each school. So, in 2023-24, there were 56 employees at Mathews High School, 31 of whom were licensed. Um that goes um up in terms of licensed employees, but down overall as we moved eighth grade over to Mathews High School. Um however, then in 25-26, this current year we're at 46 and 32. Um at Thomas Hunter, you can see Thomas Hunter goes down pretty dramatically. That's because of eighth grade going to the
010high school, fifth grade this year um this summer went over to the elementary school. So, you have two grade levels um being moved from Thomas Hunter, and so that's a big part of that reduction. Um at the elementary school, again going from 55 and 30 down to 50 and 32, even with the um inclusion of an um a new and entirely an additional grade level. So, overall total full-time and part-time in 2023-24, we were at 224 employees current this current school year we're at 183. Again, thinking about what's um behind the numbers, um these previous years included custodians. So, we still have custodians in our building, obviously, um but they aren't Mathews employees. Um in 23-24, there were 12 custodians. So, in 25-26, there are zero custodians employed by our school division. So, 12 of
011that um number comes from um custodial, also the maintenance merger, um those employees, anybody with maintenance is employed by the county, not by the schools. So, that's about 14 of those employees. Um but again, there are reductions in staff across licensed areas, um support staff areas, too, again, as student enrollment has declined, um our um staffing has also declined as well. Um salary scale comparison, so this is the comparison last year. I've done this um and I did it in 23 and again in 24 to take a look at um where where we were in 24, again trying to um remain competitive with our neighbors in West Point, Middlesex, and Gloucester in terms of comparing the salary scale. And um there are lots of things that go into the scale that are difficult to easily
012compare, so supplements and stipends and extended contracts and things along those lines aren't always in that scale and easy to compare. There we have variability within our Mathews salary scale. For example, we have longevity supplements that wouldn't necessarily be on the scale that our employees um earn after certain years of service that would increase their overall compensation. But just looking at the scales themselves, um it you can see where um we a gap widens at um 20 and 30 years. So, this is in 2024. Um looking at it for 2025, so let me So, if you can kind of glance and see Well, I didn't do all the the color coding. Um the the gap um especially with West Point and Gloucester, it has widened from 24 to 25. Um We had made progress from
01323 into 24. Um last year coming into this year, um that gap again widened. So, we're pretty comparable with Middlesex and Gloucester at zero years experience, but again that that gap begins to grow at 10 and then again at 20 and then again at 30. And in terms of recruitment of teachers, we're I I think in my um short time here, I don't think we've hired a teacher directly from college. So, we're we're not hiring um able to hire folks um from, you know, like with zero years experience. Most of the time we're hiring staff members who are in that zero to five or they're in that 25 to 30 range. They're kind of in those two bands. Um either they're they're young teachers who um have just located to the area or um they've
014heard good things about Matthews or they're a veteran teacher who is kind of there the family has relocated with eyes on retirement shortly and so they want kind of a a different um a a slower pace, if you will. Um so, those are kind of where where we've been in terms of hiring staff members. Um but being able to um compete in that 20 and 30 year um experience levels is um is difficult for us right now. The other thing we did last year was take a look at our health insurance comparison and kind of like salary scales, it's there's a just a lot of variability in health insurance plans across divisions in terms of options and deductibles and coverages. So, what I did last year and then what I tried to do um quickly
015this year was to look at the lowest cost option versus the highest cost option and then if they had a high deductible option available. So, um the the top couple rows um are where we are with Matthews. So, if you're an individual on the Sentara plan, you're paying $68 a month. If you chose the local choice Anthem, as a single individual, it's $237 a month or if you did the high deductible plan, it's 65. Um if you have the low Wait, wait, where are we? Okay, so Let me try it right-handed. Um Uh it gets lost somewhere. Okay. So, but for the family um for the Sentara plan, it's 679 a month. Um for the Anthem plan, it's 1,100 um high deductible and then gets at 687. So, and then looking at um our competitors
016with in terms of size um insurance-wise, when we look at West Point and Middlesex, um the difference being um their their plan options and costs. So, we're the only one that offers Sentara as an option. Everybody else has different versions basically of Anthem. Um so, but they have kind of a lower cost Anthem and a higher cost Anthem um policies and there you can see the difference where we get um super We're in We're again, we're the Sentara becomes relatively competitive and I think we're we're competitive with West Point and Middlesex in terms of our insurance, our health care options. We're um nowhere close to competitive with insurance options when you compare it to um Gloucester. Um especially if um for a you know, we're half the cost um of a family plan or we're
017Matthews is double the family plan cost um for um health insurance. Um Gloucester doesn't They they have many more options, so they don't offer like a low cost Anthem and a high cost Anthem. Their flexibility is in they have um employee, employee plus one, employee plus or employee plus kids, employee plus spouse, employee family, whereas a lot of divisions are employee, employee spouse or employee family. There's not kind of that variable for just your kids. Um so, that's like kind of kind of one of the other again, variables that makes it difficult to do health insurance comparison. Okay, so in terms of priorities and things that we've talked about over the last month or so in terms of budget development and going back again to strategic plan increasing student achievement. So our goal has to
018maintain has to be maintain a quality staff deployed effectively. So we have to have the right people and we have to deploy those those people in the best ways. And also having access to high-quality instructional materials. So we're going to have costs associated with upcoming textbook adoptions and being able to access intervention materials and just instructional materials and having being able to budget for those things along with furniture needs and technology needs for our classrooms. Talking a little bit about our salary scale. So being able to retain quality staff knowing that other localities are going to need to fill positions as well. We've embarked on a salary scale study. We have been collaborating with that thought partner. We'll have some of that information back in January because that will help inform some of our budgeting
019needs. I'm anticipating kind of a multi-year phase in to help adjust that salary scale and make us competitive and get us to catch to close that gap. I'm not sure we're going to have the same salary scale as as West Point anytime soon, but I think we have to have a plan in place to close that gap and to be competitive. And also in terms of compensation a big thing last year was we were able to provide a salary increase, but we had to pass on a large chunk of health insurance premiums to our staff as well that ate quite a bit of that salary increase. So it became um I don't want to say nominal, but it it it was not the compensation increase that I think folks had had hoped it was going
020to be. Um in terms of safety and facility upgrades being able to budget for two school resource officers. We've had conversations with the county about while it's if it's in our budget like they're not our employees. So managing that movement of funds from you know, it's if it stays in our budget, then who's writing the check then to the sheriff's office to cover the costs for school resource officers. But I think we need to keep in mind having that number having that placeholder in our budgets for for planning purposes with the county. We've heard about the need for athletic trainer. Currently in our in our current budget, there's a placeholder for contracting for an athletic trainer, but we heard from individuals. I think it was last month the need for a full-time Matthews County Public
021Schools athletic trainer to put that back in into the budget. Energy efficiency. That's sort of a placeholder to acknowledge county costs associated with a lot of our upgrades. So the county's going to have increasing costs for I know with capital improvements, they're still looking at boiler replacements and lighting replacements and things along those lines. So there's a desire to upgrade facilities and costs that are associated with upgrading and modernizing our facilities that will come with some energy savings, but there's that's going to be part of those facilities upgrades as well. And then four is basically hearing from you all to start the conversation start the debate about priorities that board members have and thoughts that board members have that want where you all want us to begin planning for and seeing what we can prioritize
022with the budget. Questions about anything in the slides before we discuss. Yes, I have a question regarding the license licensure piece. >> Mhm. We could move back to that slide. On the number that are licensed, does that include provisional? Yes. Mhm. Okay. Those are positions held by licensed staff. So that is teachers school counselors, library media specialists, licensed instructional staff. Does it include Maybe you've answered the question, but does it include people who are on track to receive certification in specific positions. Yes, so let me see if I can clarify. That is based on the position, not the person. So, if the position requires a VDOE-issued license and a teaching library media specialist or school counseling area, And so, the admin, although they have a license, is not included in the parentheses. They would be
023in the other category. Dr. Daniels, on the division there, the 18 we have over for this year, who does that include? Um so, that's anybody at the school board office. That includes um our IT folks, um who else am I missing? >> education, all the special education. Okay. Everybody Everybody at special ed, federal programs. Okay. >> Social worker, secondary reading specialist. Okay, thank you. >> Speech language pathologist. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Regarding the transportation numbers, the 38 is I'm a bit perplexed as to is it we have a more cod more in a cadre of people that are available to help drive, I'm assuming it's like the buses, versus last year it was 31. So, are there just more people that Mr. Worrells has to select from, or do we have and or do we have
024more students being transported to out-of-county placements? Um our out-of-county placements are um again, this I think this too was snapshot in October. So, some of those out-of-county placements grew from October of '24 through [clears throat] last year, and those are still in place for this year. So, there was um some growth that is reflected in that 38. Um so, I think from October of '24 until December of '25, I think we do have um some additional out placements. So, sometimes we may it may require us to send two cars, or if two students can't ride in the car together, it's the same number of out placements, but I've got to put them in separate vehicles now um to get them to the same destination. Um we may at times hire additional aids to be on
025buses um to support students um during the during the transportation, or we may need to put them um for due to an IEP need to have them in a separate car, and sometimes a car with an aid um to bring them to school. So, with regards to I don't know that I can give you the exact detail that we went from, you know, this this number of out placements to that number of out placements, um but that's usually the case. Thank you. >> Cuz our bus routes are the same. So, the variability is going to be a little bit in um substitute drivers, perhaps, um or individual car drivers, or aids that go along with those car drivers for out of placement purposes. Out of division placement. Any questions? Okay. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Daniels.
026Yeah, thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Moving to item four, discussion by board members. So, this is the opportunity for the board members to uh provide Dr. Daniel with some information, their thoughts about uh funding needs, things possibly that we have heard from staff. Um Yeah. You need to have this one. Um Dr. Daniels, some of the uh information I have it on my mic now. No? Okay. Um Dr. Daniels, some of the information that we have received via email, um particularly Laura Mills and Caleb Brown, um I noted those, and I think uh from what I see, we should certainly include those in our budget. Okay. Is my my thought. And there was one more. >> I I will give a request I know for Mr. Dobson who is not here. He's um very
027excited to have the ROTC Mhm. program continue to continue to thrive and to grow and wants to make sure that we have positions available should they be sought. Kind of on that um we are slated for 15 slots at CBGS um going forward. So, we had been at 14, so we're um I think we'll we'll be at 15 um for next year. Are we I don't think we're at 15 this year. I think we're at 15 slated for next year um going forward. So, that'll give us five students in 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. Is that because we procured another seat from another division or what's the reason for that increase? No, I think it was part of they're working to um bump enrollments. I agreed because um the number of applicants we've had in
028the last 2 years has been pretty robust there um in terms of numbers and also qualifications of of those students. So, I felt um it was worthwhile to go ahead and agree to um having five at each at each um class. I think at some point I think maybe our seat there four seniors in this um year's group, so that's where it it dipped one year in particular I think. So. Okay. Yeah, just [clears throat] a couple of thoughts um Ms. Diggs mentioned the email from um Ms. Mills the I think she's a high school nurse. >> Mhm. Um and I read email. Yes, I I would be in total agreement with supporting her requests. Um I will add I'm not going to get into this at the moment. There is some legislation pending um
029that supposed to be going through the General Assembly beginning in January that may change the way we do school nursing and some requirements and so forth. So, yes, I would certainly support um improving making improvements to our school nurses clinics, offices, whatever they're referred to. The other thing that I would like to stress um is my understanding that the the uh money that was um proposed for the SROs is for this current fiscal year. Am I correct in saying >> That's correct. So, the resolution that you all passed last month was for the SROs for this current this current fiscal year. So, I would certainly like to see money put in the budget for the next fiscal year as well. And I want to add that I'm very excited that we are finally getting the
030ball rolling on some weapons detection and some more [clears throat] safety issues, safety equipment, and so forth at the schools. I think it's great, but SROs we we need them. We really do. I agree, Mr. Morgan. That's my top item. And we've been advocating for this for a long time. I think we've reached a good uh relationship with the the county and the sheriff's department on this. I'm so hoping that we will have applicants to fill the positions and be able to um have SROs in our buildings. Um that's that's item number one for me. I um I would add the athletic trainer. Um I don't know if that was um assumed that we would be adding an athletic but want to make that explicit. Yeah, we can advertise. We advertised in this you know,
031we've advertised previously. It's just it's a difficult um position to fill, but um we can't fill it if we don't have a budget um a placeholder for that salary. So. Right. I'd like to see us move forward with that. Like you said, that won't make it any easier to fill, Right. but I I think we should at least make an effort. Mhm. Absolutely. I would also ask that um based on one of the emails the email from the nurse in the elementary school that uh that her request for Nate. an aid be evaluated. Something we touched on previously that when we combine the schools with the question could one nurse um be able to accommodate that and and she certainly has documented that one day very very well. Um, and and it seems to me
032also she's asking for um protocols or different protocols or more stringent protocols and that may address it but I suspect even if we change that it's going to take some time for faculty to make the change as well. >> and families, too. And families, too. Yes. I I think that's fair. And and also it is elementary school and I think you are like more I I I'm I'm I'm going to make an assumption here that more likely to have [clears throat] those stomach aches. Um, now I'm not feeling well. Um, I'd like to think that's not occurring at that level at the high school but um, with that said it certainly is occurring at the elementary school. Any other comments, questions, ideas? I think that Well No, no, no. I mean, the issue's going to
033be also I think that where the rubber meets the road is what we're going to be asking for the teachers. Um and In thinking about this, I have thought last year um when we had um, a bit of some friction between the board of supervisors and the school board um, and as a school board we discussed um, eliminating some of the costs of the programs. Um, and that brought out as we all know a flood of parents who did not want us to discontinue any of those um, subsidized programs understandably. But it seems to me that because we parents have an interest in what affects their child that no one is advocating across the board in at that level um to supporting our teachers. And so what's always seems to be left at the end
034of the day is where the cuts going to come, it's going to be the teacher salaries. Um and that um, that's the cornerstone of our of our school division. So and I know this is going to be a challenging budget year and I'm well aware of that but it is also in our strategic plan that we continue to grow our teacher salaries um, so we can be a um an employer of choice um, and not um, not that we are that but certainly the employer of last resort. Um, so I I don't know what my colleagues feel about what percent we should be looking at. Um, I'm going to throw out 6% because I once you go low, it's hard to go high again. Um, so I'm just putting that out there and I certainly
035would like to hear from my colleagues um, in that in that arena. I'll speak to that. Um I agree with you. Um, I know it's going to be a hard budget year certainly but having been in the classroom, we know what's what there and looking ahead, I know what my as a retiree what my insurance is going to go up to this coming year and we see what happened just with our insurance with Sentara and with um Blue Cross Blue Anthem. Um, Anthem and I don't I doubt that goes down anytime soon in the US. So I think that is, you know, looking and comparing like your chart just said um, what the teachers had to pick up with health care. I think it is very important for us to look at that and consider
036it with the budget. And I would certainly agree with six. I'm not going to put a percentage number on it just yet but I think it's we need to to be able to give uh, teachers and support staff a a meaningful increase, not just one or two percent. Um, I'm I'm not I'm not saying six is too much. I'm just I'm not putting a a number on it just yet. But we all know this, the cost of living is not getting any cheaper for any of us, and it doesn't appear that it's going to in the near future. So, if we we've got to take care of our people. We we have to. If we don't, I've said it a thousand times, we don't take care of our people, they're going to leave us. So,
037we need to do the very best we can. If 6% will work, I'm not opposed to it. I'm just simply not putting a number on it at this point. I I just one thing one last thing, and I'm not sure whether we need to advocate for this in our budget or it's going to be part of the salary review, the compensation review, and that has to do with the distinctions between the aides and what their responsibilities are. It's not eight equals eight equals eight, and we've we've we've known that. Um And [clears throat] so, there's also the distinction between them, but the base salary, the starting salary for our aides is abysmal. It is absolutely abysmal, and we know year after year, we cannot keep aides. Um and whether it's because it's the challenges of
038the job or whether it's it's the the pay, the salary, um or a combination, I don't know. Um but, we need to do a better job of having a higher starting salary, I believe. I know that's a big ask. So, I'm sorry, Dr. Gibbs. I didn't mean >> was You know, that was That was my point. I was going to reiterate that point, make that explicit, and I'm confident that with the analysis that's being done on the salary scale, that we'll come up with a better rationale for our salaries for our teacher assistants. I think attracting and keeping them is is been proven to be very difficult at the wage that we are offering. Excuse me. But, my my major comment about this part is that we need to acknowledge, as Dr. Daniel said, that
039we have faced the third highest increase in the state in our local composite index. We have to be extremely mindful of that as we are being stewards of the citizens money in our county. So, this is going to be a tightrope act, of course, but we cannot lose sight of that increase. That jump was significant, and it is a direct burden on our citizens. It is. I believe Dr. Daniel hasn't [clears throat] our LCI increased to like 0.66? 0.6637 >> Okay. So, that's approximately a 7% increase from what it was. It's seven It's definitely seven percentage points. Right. Um so, going from 0.59 to 0.66, yes. Right. So, yeah, we we're really going to It's going to be a balancing act. It's going to be a balancing act. And And if, I'm sorry, if um
040the state should come out like they have done in some previous years and said, "Here's some money for your teachers, you can give them all a 5% raise, whatever." We have to remember, it all sounds great until we have to put in that 0.66. Right. Exactly. >> So, it's really going to be a struggle. And that's for two years. Correct. And just a note on that, the maximum LCI is 0.80. Correct. So, we are quickly approaching the max. And I couldn't see who was the highest. I couldn't read it. Um there are several divisions who are capped at 0.8. Most are um Northern Virginia. Um but, off the top of my head, I think there's all I think Surrey is also 0.8. Um power plant. Um Okay. Um Lancaster is 0.8. Um Okay. I was
041wondering if there are any in our Yeah, Lancaster's definitely 0.8. Um but, like Arlington and maybe Falls Church, Williamsburg may be 0.8 as well. I can I can look it up if Um and it's also publicly available on the Department of Education website. Just go to um 2627 local composite index. That's interesting that I mean, Lancaster's no surprise. Um Northumberland I would have thought would have equally gone Northumberland is up there. They may be 0.8. Um if they're not, they're They're not. They're they're They're they're pretty close. They're pretty close. Um What I thought was interesting is I think that Lancaster has dwindled in there slowly decreasing in their students. There's more than ours, but it still looked like the same um drop. Um but they're also building brand new school or have built a
042brand new school. So, that's interesting that um we're kind of following in their in their path. >> Okay, so it is Alexandria, Arlington, Bath, Fairfax City, Falls Church, Goochland, Lancaster, Rappahannock County, not Right. not Rappahannock High School and in Richmond County, and then Surrey. And what's the thought about why Bath is so high? You say Bath didn't >> I think um um the Homestead. Oh, thank you. Thank you. >> [snorts] >> And then again, it's small relatively small student population and stuff, too. Any more questions or comments from board members, superintendents? All right. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Daniel, board members. There being no more comments, this work session is adjourned.