001Good evening everyone. We would like to uh call the special meeting for the budget presentation for January 22nd, 2026 into order. Madame clerk, >> Mr. Percal >> here, >> Mr. Card >> here, >> Mr. Perug >> here, >> Mr. Mr. Hedgepath >> here. >> Miss Rizzy, >> Miss Burke >> here, >> Mr. Jafari >> here, >> Miss Fernandez >> here. We have a quorum. Thank you. And before we move forward, I'd like to make an announcement. As part of the city's annual fire in inspections, the elevators are being tested tonight. The elevators will remain operable, but may be slower than normal. As always, please use the nearest stairs in the event of an emergency. Also, at some point during tonight's meeting, we may see strobing lights and or hear intermediate alarms that are part of
002the inspection procedures. Please do not be alarmed. We will adjust accordingly should these things occur. And with that, we would like to transition the meeting to 2.01, receive the superintendence of FY27, estimate of needs. Thank you, Madam Chair, and good evening, everyone. I uh am here tonight to present to you the FY27 budget proposal for your consideration. Uh before we get into the details of the budget, I did want to just take a moment and answer a question that typically is asked. What does all the money do. And the answer to that question is it produces a lot of great outcomes for kids. I would love to go to the next slide, but now the clicker seems to not want to work for me. So if Mr. There we go. Thank you. We'll see if
003it keeps working. Um, I wanted to highlight some of the great work that our uh, teachers and our principles, our support staff, and of course, most of all, our kids have done over the last several years. And much of this would not be possible without the investments that RPS has made. So, I want to thank this board, prior boards, the city administration, and the state for the investments. As we've seen for the last two years, uh, back-to-back years of growth on reading, math, science, and history, SOS, reading improvement faster than the state, and record graduation rates hitting above 80% for the first time in nearly a decade and highest in the last 20 years, which is as far back as the VDOE. counts the data for our black students and our economically disadvantaged students and
004although not a record uh reaching a a very high point 83% for students with disability. I wanted to start there because that is where the money goes. So when folks ask uh that is where the investment goes and why we need to continue to invest in our children so that we can continue to build on that momentum. Uh next, let me just give a little bit of background about the RPS budget. Uh for those of you who may be watching, it is a long process. We are in uh step two really where I introduce the budget to the board for consideration. Um but there is much to come. After the board considers, the board will vote and what's called approve the budget. Then it gets sent on to the mayor. The mayor will then send
005his budget to the city council. City council will then make decisions and then it will come back to RPS and the school board will make final decisions and officially adopt the budget. And that's the budget that we then live with for the next year. While all that is going on, the general assembly is working on the state budget, which of course has major implications for us. And I'll say more about that in a little bit. fiscal year goes from July 1 to June 30th. So we are talking about July 126 to June 30th 27 for the public. We actually have three different budgets. So this gets confusing for folks and you can't mix and match money between these budgets. So one is our operating budget which funds as it sounds like the basic operations of
006schools, teachers, equipment, books, buses. Then there's the CIP budget which is about major maintenance projects like a new roof. And then there's the new school construction budget which as it sounds like is for the uh construction of new schools. A bit more about the operating budget. That first one, there's [clears throat] actually two funds, two parts of the operating budget. the general fund which funds most of the general operations. That's about 80% of the operating budget. That's what we're talking about tonight. There is also non-general funds. That's about 20%. That includes a lot of federal funds like Title One which supports schools with low-income students, Head Start, IDA, which is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is for exceptional education students, and so on. We're not discussing all that tonight because those are largely
007formuladriven, and when those grants come up for renewal, we discuss them mostly in the spring. All right, I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but Virginia has a complicated way of funding schools. Uh the bottom line is that uh the current manner in which it funds schools is uh perhaps more complicated than it needs to be and not as equitable as it needs to be. Um and that is something that not just I am saying but was noted by JARK the general assembly's nonpartisan research arm. Um one thing that I do want to highlight is the local composite index for the public. This is the state's estimate of essentially how much a city or county should be able to pay for education. And so the balance, what's left over is what the
008state kicks in. So the higher the LCI, the more the state expects the locality to pay. So in Richmond, our LCI is 0.58. That means according to the state's formula, city of Richmond should kick in 58% at least of education funding. What's really interesting about this number is that it's actually higher than the LCI for Hanover and Reicho Chesterfield and it is almost as high as the number for Fairfax. Meaning according to the state Richmond's ability to pay for education is higher than Henriko's ability to pay, higher than Chesterfields, higher than Handovers, and almost as high as Fairfaxes. This is one of the elements of education funding that the JARK committee suggested needs to be reformed. I'm going to skip over the the next couple of slides. Um I I want to do touch on
009this one though which is very salient for Richmond public schools. The formula that the state uses and this is a quote from the JARK report does not adequately account for higher needs students. State funding for atrisisk students, special education students, and English learner students is less than the level of funding determined necessary to educate them in cost studies performed in other states. I do want to note the current general assembly is trying to address this. In fact, there are two bills going on right now. One in the House, one in the Senate, HB92 by Delegate Rasul and Senate Bill 90 by Senator Favola that are actually trying to begin to address this inequity. So to everybody listening tonight, I would encourage you to voice your support for these two bills. They will probably continue to
010iterate over the next couple of weeks, but they do begin to address this very serious inequity which disproportionately impacts students and schools in Richmond and places like Richmond. Again, that's HB92, Delegate Rasul, Senate Bill 90, Senator Favola. I want to switch to the city now, which also provides a big chunk of our funding. As the public may be aware, this coming year there will be a freeze on property tax assessments. That's a great thing for homeowners. We all know property taxes have gone up and that is a burden for many families. is not as great thing for Richmond public schools because most of our funding from the city comes from property taxes. So with that freeze, what that means is the pie for RPS is just not going to grow very much. And so we
011are not expecting much of an increase from the city this year. And even though we would love a big increase, the dollar simply will not. So you'll see that reflected in the budget. Uh there are several other factors affecting the city as well that we've included, but that's that's the key. With that, let me jump to the core of the proposal. And in short, we are expecting about $31 million in additional expenses this coming year, but we anticipate only about 9 million in additional revenue. 31 million in expenses, nine in revenue. The difference is 22 million. And so we are proposing 22 million in reductions to ensure that we remain in balance. Of course, I hate making reductions to our budget, but we are trying to be as fiscally responsible as we possibly can be
012while preserving our core work, which is educating children in schools. So everything around that we've tried to look very closely at to determine where we can tighten our belts. What you'll see on the next couple of slides is first our budget pressures by our five dreams for RPS priorities. Academics, talent, wellness, engagement, and operations. Some of the biggest drivers of our budget pressures are um the collective bargaining agreements which we uh want to meet those obligations as they provide much needed raises and other incentives for our employees. Same time they are quite expensive as you can see here. Priority B2 comes to about $17 million in additional expenses. Here's the revenue picture as I noted from the city. A little bit more than five million from the state, a little bit more than 7 million.
013Those are increases. But then we are losing a couple of key one-time funds. We received three million in historic tax credits for the rebuild of Fox. Those monies were spending now and so when they go away, we experience that as a revenue loss. In addition, the one-time fund balance that is carried over again, that goes away and we experience that as a loss as well. And so, you net that out and it brings us to 8.7 million. Simplicity sake, we've been talking about it as plus 9 million. Of course, if these bills uh make it through the GA and get to the governor for signature, uh that revenue picture could look a lot better. And so again, uh it is just as important to express our concern when things aren't going well at the GA
014as it is to express our appreciation when they are. And so I do want to make sure that the RPS community stands up for these delegates and senators who are trying to do right by our kids. That is going to be absolutely critical. Now to the reductions. You can see here again broken out by the five priorities. Um, and I'll talk a little bit more in detail about each of these in a moment. Uh, in terms of the budget pressures, this is now broken out line by line. I'm not going to uh walk through everything everything on these slides. Of course, you can read through them. Um, just a few notable things here. um rising exceptional education uh costs also tuition costs at all the regional schools are going up um and we are mandated
015to adopt math curricula uh this year uh from the BDOE and there will be a cost there moving on to talent here are all the collective bargaining commitments uh that are currently in place you'll see raises step increases as well that totals 8.3 million We have additional uh pressures in the talent world uh reflecting our actual expenditures on subs. Uh it's it's quite significant and there are other increase as well. Most notably an increase in health insurance. It's going up by about 9% this year. uh some wellness uh budget pressures, most notably uh nursing services uh costing more engagement. Uh various increases here as well to reflect our actual spend and operations. A number of things here, most notably transportation costs reflecting actual spend. And then there are several special revenue funds that will not
016continue. um things like the state's all-in tutoring fund which came out of the pandemic that has sunseted. So again, we experience that as a law. On to the reductions. Uh again, I'm not going to go through each one, but I do want to highlight the ones that are most significant. First is the closure of the Richmond Virtual Academy. Uh this is a very painful one. Uh the Richmond Virtual Academy grew out of the pandemic, was initially funded by COVID era dollars and met a very critical need. And there are still many families uh for whom virtual is the preferred mode of instruction. And we have great teachers and great staff there doing great work. I spoke with them all this morning. Fortunately, without those COVID dollars, we have been able to float RVA for another
017year with local dollars. But in a time of tight resources, we unfortunately are not going to be able to do that. I do want to make sure that it is clear all the teachers at RVA will have a spot elsewhere in Richmond. And so I don't want any of them, as I shared this morning, to worry about a job, assuming they want to come and do in-person instruction. One more note, uh going to the next item. An earlier version of this presentation said we were closing the secondary success center. We are not. We're just closing one piece of it. And so I want to make sure we've notified the relevant employees. But I want to share for the public that the secondary success center is not closing. The third item there is the elimination of
018summer school for elementary and middle school students. Again, we do not want to do this, but as we looked at preserving the core of our work, which is the school year and the school day, uh this is an extra element that while we would love to have, we're not going to be able to afford. And we do have great partners in the city, parks and wreck, that run programming during the summer that we would love to direct our students towards. I want to be clear, we are keeping high school credit recovery in the summer, which is critical for graduation. We are keeping that. The next one is very important. Right now, we provide over $700,000 in in services to afterchool partners like uh parks in a wreck, YMCA, higher achievement, next up and so on.
019Most of that is transportation and security. We will not be able to provide that next year. And so I have shared that with those providers. We are working with the city to see if there are other ways of making up for that loss because of course those are valuable programs and experiences for our children. Uh the next one is about the four testing coordinators that we talked about uh several weeks ago for high schools. This was the number one thing our high schools wanted. Um, I do want to note we do believe that we would be able to use four of our educational technology resource positions and uh based on their uh based on the code about what those roles can do uh it can serve this purpose of test coordination. And so we are
020uh looking at potentially moving for those positions into these kinds of roles next year. Uh we think we'd be able to meet most of the need, but we will of course see over the course of the budget cycle if we're able to restore funding. If not, we would go with that pathway to largely meet this request from high school principles. The other items on here I am going to uh skip over. they're not as critical to discuss tonight. I want to jump to priority two, which is the talent office reductions. This page lists the collective bargaining reductions. What you'll notice is we are pausing the raises uh but keeping the step increase. I want to make sure that's clear for everybody watching tonight. Every year we've offered for the last several years a 1.17% increase
021as a step increase as teachers and other staff move up yeartoyear. We've been able to preserve that. All that we are promoting or offering here tonight is a freeze of raises that were uh negotiated and that we would bring back into play next year if funding were available. One additional note I want to highlight is for uh the REA in particular, there are other CBA payments, things like $55 an hour for covering another teacher's class. Again, we would like to preserve that, but what we are proposing is a 50% reduction in that for next year. Again, if funds become available, we would be able to restore that next year. A few other things in the talent space that I do think are important to highlight. One is adjusting substitute teacher contracts from 8 to seven
022hours. Next is right now we fully fund 100% the cost of vision insurance. We would not be able to do that next year. And then uh also it's important to note uh with the health insurance increase you're proposing a 5050 split with employees. Right now RPS absorbs 100% of the increase in costs for health insurance. We're proposing to split that 5050. Just to do a little bit of math, if you're paying 500 u a year in health insurance and it goes up 10%, that's $50. What we're proposing is half of that 50 25 would be borne by the employee and the other 25 by RPS. Additionally, I want to note um we're proposing a furlow of two days. In essence, that means a loss of two days of pay for senior staff, directors and above.
023I myself am proposing a five-day loss of pay and um I think that covers uh the key items with the exception of one final one which is uh very important which is the reduction of about 46 FTEES largely from the central office. Those individuals were notified today. And so I do want to just take a moment uh and express that I know it is extremely anxiety producing to learn that you may be losing your position. We are doing everything we possibly can to support people through that process. providing a host of resources and identifying if there are other positions in the school system for which individuals have the right skill set and the right certifications and licenses. But I did want to uh again publicly express my understanding and empathy for those individuals and for
024what they are going through today. Um the next notable item is in the wellness space. A 30% reduction to our mental health and wraparound support provider contracts. That's communities and schools, RBHA, the Richmond Behavioral Health Association, and Child. Again, highly regrettable reductions, but I'm trying to make the numbers work. In the engagement front, I think the most notable and public facing reduction would be to eliminate Summerfest uh which we do each summer uh to welcome families and kids back. And then in the operations uh space um a number of reductions of supplies and contracts uh to help us get into balance. And then finally there was one last item uh in the other category just reducing attendance at confidence. So that is the detail on the reductions. Uh the next section just provides highlevel snapshot
025uh for the board and the public uh which lays out each uh here on this slide each fund source for a total general general fund operating budget of $483,314,543. You see there the revenue increase that I mentioned before of 8,711,300. Uh where does all that money go? This is broken out by personnel and non-personnel. So you see there uh the proposed budget has 258 million going to salaries, 108 million to benefits, and 71 million to non-personnel services. Next, it's broken out by state function code. These are the categories that the state requires all school divisions to report out on. construction, um, administration, attendance and health, pupil transportation, operations and maintenance, school nutrition services, facilities, debt service and fund transfers, and technology. As you can see, the overwhelming majority of our budget goes to instruction, $36
026million. Uh, the next slide breaks out what each of those codes refers to. I do want to note the second bullet administration attendance and health. Um that number uh is high because we spend a lot on school nurses, psychologists and speech and aiology person. Last slide here is our full budget including all the special revenue funds. the things I mentioned several minutes ago, things like Title One, IDA, the school meal program, all those things uh that are additional. That brings our budget to 529 million. But again, we're not discussing all those because those are formula driven and those grants come up for renewal in the spring. We discuss them. that I wanted you to have. This is the full all-in every funding source at RPS. Uh as I mentioned, we have three budgets. Next one
027is our CIP budget for maintenance projects. Uh you'll see here about $10 million of requests. Uh you'll see it's broken out electrical, fire safety, HVAC, plumbing, roofs, structural. I do want to note that for the last several years, we've received 2.5 million a year for uh CIP maintenance. So uh 9.3 is more than that. And uh we'll continue to advocate for but I also wanted uh the public to understand that uh our typical allocation is 2.5 million. As you can see, just looking at this slide right here, replacing the windows at Albert Hill Middle School, it's going to cost $1.9 million. So, if we get 2.5, that leaves 600,000 for everything else. Uh, which I think I can safely say is insufficient. And then last, because people ask about this quite a bit, what about
028building new schools? That is a separate budget. Uh we have a current trunch of about $200 million from the city for that purpose. Most of that, about 145 million, is going for the new Richmond High School for the Arts, which I visited last week and looks absolutely fabulous. Uh there's about 40 million for the new CTE Center on Mory Street. spent about 5 million for all of the design and site assessment for the new Woodville. And then in FY24, a couple of budget cycles ago, 10 million of that new school money was reallocated for maintenance projects spent on that. Want to be clear, there won't be additional money for new school construction until FY29 from the city unless the bill that would authorize a 1% sales tax passes the general assembly and is signed by
029the governor, which I think it is likely to happen. Then there would be a referendum here in the city uh to see if the voters would support that. I humbly believe they would. And that 1% sales tax would go just towards school construction. Some estimates indicate it would spin off about $50 million a year for school construction. Um, finally, I do want to note for new school construction, we have received some money from the state, and I did want to note that um, in what's called school construction, construction assistance uh, program funding, SCAP for funding. I do want to note on the Woodville side that we do need to encumber that funding uh, very soon. Unfortunately, since we don't have the balance of the Woodville project, um we are going to reach out to the
030state to see if we could get a bit of a pause until this 1% uh law potentially goes into effect. So, we'll follow up with the board at our meeting uh in just a few days in February about that. Uh that is the entirety of the presentation. Thank you for bearing with me as I went through it all. I do want to say publicly uh thank you to the school board for your collaboration already this budget season. It has been the most collaborative budget season I've ever been a part of and appreciate that this is a very difficult budget season and that there are tough choices to be made. And I know that together uh we will do the right things for Richmond's kids. And I hope and pray that these bills or something like
031them make their way through and we can come back around the table soon and discuss what we might be able to store. Uh with that I will turn it back to you Madam Chair. >> Thank you for your presentation. Uh Mr. Cameron, at this time we'll open the floor if there are any questions, comments, feedback as it relates to the budget. >> Miss Burke. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Cameras, for your presentation. I appreciate your closing remarks for sale. I should say at the end of your presentation regarding the 1% um sales tax and you stated that that would be only be used for school construction. My question is new construction or construction period. >> I believe it's new construction but there might be some it could be for both. Mr.
032understand what you're saying. I think that would be at the discretion of the governing body >> as in us. >> Yes. >> And the reason I'm stating is if we anticipating getting 2.5 as we have in the past which I don't understand but it is what it is. Then if we get the 1% which will probably be we don't know at this time what do we need to do and Mr. Annie will probably answer this for us later, but to remind us and the community what we can do to make sure that we get this 1%. Um, I know he's put in place a We just need to work towards this because number one, Woodville time every week was spent. Time was spent hours after hours after hours from the principal, the faculty staff, um,
033our operations um, chief, the whole nine yards, the committee, the community. And then to get to that point, that's unacceptable. It's unacceptable. And then as I was sharing earlier, I just want to say thank you to my fellow board members and across wherever the city of Richmond and then some. Every year we have this and we've been through this before, but every year we have to beg to take care of our children, our future. I don't get it. So, we're really back in the 60s and the 70s fighting for what should take place, the right to have a public education, a good education. Our teachers struggling, our persons that commit themselves to doing what is right on behalf of every child because they care and we keep battling. Something is wrong. Something is wrong in
034this country and in this state. And after that, I'll drop the mic. Thank you, Miss Burke. Mr. Farooq. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to start by first just emphasizing Mr. Perl's comments during our press conference, which is that there is plenty of wealth in this country and in this state and in this city. And while we at the school board and our colleagues on city council have to work within limitations of revenue streams, statutory authorities, spending limits, all of those things are man-made. And when you talk to people in power, sometimes there's a reluctance to make wholesale changes because it is difficult and messy. But if you look around, it's worth it to make those changes. It's completely possible to change the LCI. It's completely possible to change the way we tax things.
035And I think there are so many people in our country, in our state, and in our city that really want our wealth to be used to support kids, to support strong communities, to make sure that kids have everything they need to become the best they can be. And so I'm really uh proud of the work we've done to make some of these tough choices, but also really emphasizing that we don't have to keep making these choices over and over. We have other options. And the other thing I'll mention real quick is also that this work, as Mr. Cameras mentioned, the budget work for our schools is starting very early. There's a lot that has to go after this. We have to send stuff to city council. We don't know for sure what the state budget
036will look like. And so this is really an attempt for us to be as honest as possible about the challenges we see coming and the things we may have to do to resolve that. We hope that it won't all work out that way. It's possible that the state may give us more money and so some of these cuts will be unnecessary. It's possible the city's fiscal picture might look different in four or five months. But instead of waiting four or five months from now and then giving people a one month turnaround of these drastic cuts, we're trying to have an open and honest conversation of the choices that face us. And is that uncomfortable? Does that make people upset? Absolutely. That's a very normal reaction to all of it. So, uh, I appreciate the openness.
037I think we're doing this the right way and I look forward to continuing this conversation. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, M. Ricard. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I just have a few follow-up questions on the presentation. Um, I know for the RVA virtual academy you mentioned superintendent cameras about the supports given to the teachers. I was wondering if you could elaborate on what supports might be offered to the families as they transition from virtual learning to a different model. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. [clears throat] Yes. Uh, our uh our team will work with families to to determine if their zone school is an option that they would like to pursue or if they would like to pursue open enrollment or uh for our high school students if they want to participate
038states virtual program which is an option for them. And so it'll be a little bit of a a matchmaking process for our families. Some may choose to go elsewhere which certainly is is their right. Um, but we're hoping that we'd be able to retain most of those families. I do also want to note that, and this question has come up, the homebound and homebased programming will continue. And I want to make sure that is stated clearly. The homebound and homebased will continue. There's actually five teachers dedicated to that work. This is not impacting >> disregard your mic. Um, thank you superintendent. I appreciate that. Um, and I think what I also just wanted to say is I appreciated the promising coming out of the general assembly today about HB92 and SB90. Um, and I do
039encourage everyone listening to contact our local delegation and let them know, but also contact um, Delegate Rousul and Senator Favola and, you know, thank them for bringing this forward and how much we support it. Um, you know, if people have don't know how to do that or don't know how to send emails, I know we're working on resources for that and and we would definitely love to help them. Um and then finally to my colleagues, you know, these next few weeks are popular and busy weeks at the general assembly. And if anyone wants to go down in the morning, please let me know or let Mr. Stanley know so that we can help you all do that and and we can go forward. Um because I think this is a tough picture. um and as
040much as we can advocate and give gratitude for the support but also let them know that their monies are going for enrichment. Our students are doing well with the investments that are made and we just don't want that to um stop. And and I think finally um in in what um Mr. Farooq just said, I think um as a practical person, I appreciate that this budget is laying out a picture. I hope this is a worst case scenario picture and that um funding will come and we will be able to present a better picture, but I do appreciate that we are preparing people for what might come. >> Thank you, Mr. Jafari. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to take a moment just express how difficult it is to to have to share
041with our personnel who come to work every day and they give their all to have to look their families in the face and have to actually tell them about these reduction and what we're really facing here and I could circle I know I've had a couple of colleagues speak to this today in this moment And you know, we we're always back at this point. You know, the state somehow believe that the money and the resources are here in Richmond and this impacts us when they see pass. But the reality is we we're back here again and each time is coming down harder. Our staff give their all and yet we have to make the kinds of cuts that we have. We really need uh more than just lip service to help out and make sure
042that we can continue to be on the rise. Which brings me to my next point. Not withstanding the reductions that I'm quite sure even before I came to sit here, this division actually realized we are still ascending. And that really speaks to the efforts that our people put on the ground. that that means that they're not just here for money. They're here to work and they give us their all. So, I I just wanted to make sure that I took the time to express that appreciation for them. I I had asked for some information. I I want to make sure that any cluster we have, not just from an optic standpoint, but across the division are impacting everybody equitably. Nothing's equal. But I want to make sure that it's equitable. And I want to be
043able to talk to my constituents and to give them data that lets them know, yes, we took everything into consideration. We didn't just make a blanket decision here. And lastly, I would ask about the 1% so that when I talk to my constituents, and I know I'm going to be getting calls and emails and texts, who do they call? who can they call at the uh general assembly? Who are the people that they actually need to reach out to? And you know, if we could just get that information to me, it doesn't even have to be out here in our public life or whatever, but I just need that information to make sure that uh the constituents across the division, not just in my district, because I get calls and texts from people throughout the
044city, just want to make sure that we're doing everything that we can on the backside to meet them at this time of need. Thanks, Madam Chair. >> Thank you, Miss Rizzy. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I echo Vice Chair Persal's um I mean I I think it wouldn't be an exaggeration anger at the fact that year after year we find ourselves um in a situation where we're begging for funding for what is our most I mean by far our most valuable resource, our children. They will determine our future and their education is extremely important and should be the focus of uh our you know state funding. Honestly, our children mean everything. So, you know, I mean there are some sources that indicate that Virginia has been underfunding schools since the 1930s. It's a long
045time. They owe us some money. Uh, and I hope that our legislators are going to be brave enough to tackle this and make that point because this is heartbreaking. Um, and it to me makes no sense when there are other areas of funding in uh our governmental and state uh budgets that seem to be um flush with cash. Um there actually have been several um reports by the government accountability office that talks about how the federal government has been underfunding schools and what the results of that have been which is you know in part our crumbling infrastructure. Um and so we need people to take this seriously. We need people in the streets. We need people to really elevate their voices to go and demand that there are some changes where public school funding is
046concerned. I do have one small question um about the budget presentation and Mr. Cameras, you may have covered it, but I I'm not sure I fully understand. Um under other local revenue it that has decreased by 2,258,000 well close to 259,000. What does that revenue in um encompass? >> Thank you Madam Chair. Um Rosie which uh page yes I would ask this speak to that. She is the guru. >> Good evening. So, we're ref Excuse me. Referencing the reduction of that 973,000. Is that the line that you're looking at? Oh, that one. Um, the largest portion of that it's going to be the historic tax credits that was related to the Fox because we had three million that we got in the current year to put towards that and that's not recurring money. But that's
047going to be the lion share of it. And I can certainly tease out what the other pieces are, but that's that's most of it. Thank you. Let's get everybody around first and then we'll circle back for additional questions and feedback. >> Mr. Hesp. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. want to also just echo my colleagues everything that they said. I I second uh I don't want to belabor that but I do u want to say I want to appreciate the administration for giving us a uh a budget that was very difficult to to create but uh was uh right sized for the moment that we're in. Uh I also want to thank the administration for providing the a number that would uh show us being fully funded at our very best and to be able to
048perform u at our our very best with all resources that we need. So that that 21 million that would be the gap between what we are uh what we need and what we are uh proposing today. So I appreciate that being quantified. uh and and hopefully we can fulfill some of that. Um I had a couple questions if you don't mind. Uh one is about the uh the 30% uh decrease in the mental health and wraparound services. U is this u are these actual positions or is this 30% uh something else uh that might cost us uh in that realm? Mr. Cameas. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, thank you, Mr. Hedgepath. Those are contracts with three providers. Communities and schools, Richmond Behavioral Health Authority, and Child Savers. RBHA and Child Savers largely provide uh
049clinical mental health services. Communities and schools is more of a wraparound supports for families. And so what we're proposing is a 30% reduction in the amount of money we pay for those contracts, which would then in turn likely mean fewer services. That being said, I do know uh for example that communities and schools is trying to identify other sources of funding to potentially keep RPS's services uh whole. Uh but of course that's Thank you, Mr. Cameron. So, u I I know that we're already short for for uh support in this in this realm that there are are schools that really need people in the building to assist uh in in these roles and u and so we've already had to to uh be very slim in in this realm. And so I I I just
050I worry about this deeply u because I know that that our our kiddos need those those mental health and repar and and this would this is most definitely uh going to negatively impact our uh our schools. Um, and so I I really hope and pray that the uh the CIS is able to to find funds other places or if we're able to restore this uh when u the state hopefully uh provides us with with the funding that we that we need. So that I just wanted to share. Uh then then uh Miss Ricard pointed out something to me earlier that I wanted to clarify as well. When it came to the uh the increases in u our agreements with the regional schools code RVA, it said that there's a 24% increase in our contract. Um
051is that is that an error? >> Madam Chair, thank you. Uh Mr. Pedath, no it is not. Thank you for that. One last question, Madam Chair. Um, a couple U projects that I'm hoping that will make it to our CIP budget for uh for this of this year. I understand we're already at a higher number than what we may anticipate the city giving us. Uh however, uh you know, Councilwoman Abu Bakr and I have been working uh diligently on uh mitigating the effects of the Jank Road project u on West the Westover Hills Elementary Community. And as administration's aware, we've been working with Timonss to uh come up with a plan to uh to to uh enlarge the the parking lot, which already faculty members are parking in in dirt and on uh the in
052the park property and through the neighborhoods because they don't have places to park and families and visitors don't have places to park. And right now our the kiss and ride, the drop off and pickup is on Jank Road and we really need to get that off of Jenk Road and and so this is a paramount project for the community uh since the uh the the Jank Road uh construction is going to be starting very soon albeit in an area not in front of the school yet and and we coordinated that that I'm thankful for the cooperation of uh uh DP uh DPW for that. Uh, but I would hope that that could show up on our uh our RC cip uh budget list uh because that's that's really key for uh for ensuring the safety
053getting that uh the kids being dropped off off of Jenk and on into our parking lot where they're where they're safe and providing enough parking spaces for the for the community um much less just the employees that that work in the building. Thank you, Mr. Perl. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Suffice to say, this is a tough budget year um that's been addressed. I It's been said already, but there's going to be a lot of reactions to this budget out there. So, a message to my constituents, to teachers and my school staff, administrators, everyone, please don't be quiet. Uh, Mr. Farooq pointed out that we are early in this budget cycle and a lot can still happen. This is not a year to sit at home, watch the TV, read the news, and remain in
054quiet outrage to yourself. This is a year of advocacy. And it's been mentioned, but I would like to really highlight how much all of my colleagues, all of the superintendent staff have been advocating at every level of government already this year. This is a year for advocacy. I love my colleagues to death, but we have seen so much of each other in January already. And I've spoken with some of my constituents and I have presented this message of advocacy and I I often hear the question, what can I do? Who can I talk to? I feel like nothing changes. So, I'm gonna make this offer just to my constituents. Anyone else can jump on board. If you don't know who to reach out to, send me your email. I will pass it along. M. Persal
055rvaschools.net. You can go to rvschools.net. Look up my email address. Send me your thoughts. Send me your emails. I will get the message to the city, to the state, wherever it needs to go. But this is a year for advocacy. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> Thank you. Um, my colleagues have said a lot and so I I certainly don't want to be redundant. Um, we shared a statement earlier with uh several news outlets. Um, but quite frankly, I'm devastated that it has to come to this. It shouldn't have to come to this. When I walked into this position, I was walking into a budget cycle. I came I remember it very clearly. I was I was walking into this position as school board member um in February and all of these changes were happening. It
056was I was trying to catch up and understand and by the time I thought I knew it, it was over. And so I didn't really have much to say. But I remember going line by line and and asking hard questions that I didn't quite know the answers to yet and and nodding my head and doing research and trying to understand. By year two, I found myself in a position where when it was presented to us at the time, I believe the number was around 43 million that we requested an increase um for the needs. Okay? Not once, not extras, not for new Hbacks and new buildings, but for debilitating roofs and a best safety and crossuards and sidewalks and essentials. So, we walk into this year again needing at least 31 million additional dollars. Not
057for extras, not for vacations, not for recognition for our associates what they deserve, not for raises, but to break even. to break even. We needed $34 million an increase to break even. And we find ourselves here where we're having to make extremely difficult decisions because there is no funding. Again, I'm not here to place blame and I'm not here to point fingers. I think we have a stellar group in in city hall, city council. We have an amazing new mayor. We have uh very great partnerships in the delegation and the state senate. But something has got to change because we can't keep reliving this moment every year. I agree with my my colleagues. This is the year to advocate. We found ourselves in an amazing position. Governor Spamberger gave a phenomenal message about just essentially
058wanting to be the change, right, that we want to see and and how education is such a major part of that. She's on board. Lieutenant Governor Hashmi, she's on board. Mayor Avula, he's on board. Senator Bagby, he's on board. Senator Jones, he's on board. Uh, all of the other colleagues that we've talked about, we knocked on doors and general assembly. My days are mixed up. Was it this week? It was this week. I had so many meetings that I lost count. There is work being done. For those who are questioning what is the board doing since last year, we have been advocating, knocking on doors, sending emails, setting up calls, setting up Zoom calls, understanding, trying to collaborate not just with our city but with the divisions across the state of Virginia. We take this
059matter very seriously. It's only eight of us on this day. We need your voices now. We need your advocacy now. And while I appreciate Vice Chair Peril's request to send all his email, all your emails to him, it's bigger than that. We'll be working with Matthew Stanley. I already know he's already starting the work of of crafting emails. Get together your testimonials. Talk about the things that matter to you. Tell how this is going to impact your family, your ch your your livelihood, your insurance premiums. We need to get the word out because we can't keep begging for money every single year. We're committed to doing this work. I'm committed to doing this work. I fight for the ninth district and I fight for RPS as a whole, but we cannot do this alone. And
060so I'm going to ask us to take a dis a different disposition now instead of pointing fingers cuz I truly believe we all want the same things from the city level to the state level. Federal level is questionable depending on who you talk to. But yet and still, now is the time for us to rally together to change the system because it's not about the people. It's the system that's broken. And so we're going to come up with a game plan. I told Matthew Stanley, I'm up in the wee hours of call me anytime. We need to mobilize and get this thing done. We will give you the information of who you need to reach out to, who you need to call. Now is the time. Don't wait until May. I want to say just
061one other thing. It takes courage to stand here and say we need 34 million, but we're only asking for nine or 10. And it's not because we don't believe in the future of our staff and our teachers and those that from the bus drivers to those that clean the toilets and those that teach in the classrooms. We believe in you. We stand beside you. But we also have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure that quite frankly the lights stay on and the broken HVAC systems are fixed. I am in a population where we're completely overpop populated in the ninth district. We have outused the trailers. Something has got to change. And while we talk about well consolidating schools, that's not the answer for the eighth and ninth district. It's not. So you close a school,
062you're going to have to open three more. It doesn't change. We need more money until we start calling out the elephant in the room. We'll remain the same. It's time for change. So with that, I want to thank the administration for the work that you've done. I know it's not been easy. I want to personally thank I know she didn't ask me to do this, but Sharina Chain for all the exceptional work that she's done in this process. I know that it's not easy. I want to thank those that have had to make the hard conversations happen today. Today was a hard day for RPS. We are losing valuable associates that have worked and tirelessly their blood, sweat, and tears and have shown up and have woken up 4:00 in the morning to open cold
063schools and turn on buses and and and all the things in between. And they deserve more. And so I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful in uh these two bills, HB92 and SB90. I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful for those that are fighting in the delegation that say that they will have additional funds that they can find somewhere. I'm hopeful that we can come back to you by May and say never mind. As a matter of fact, we have more than we asked for because that's what RPS deserves. And with that, I think Miss Burke had her hand raised. Thank you, Madame Chair. And um as you stated, we all are on the same page whether no matter where we're sitting because at the end of the day, we all are at the table. It's not about us. It's about
064the children of whom we serve. And this has been going on for years, but I sincerely believe that a change is going to come. You have not because you asked not. We're asking for what 10 million, but we need 34 million, I believe you said. Why aren't we ask 31? Why are we asking for 43? I thought at one time we needed 43. And the reason I'm saying that is number one, and I I I'm asking if Matthew Stanley can come forward to some extent because I'm thinking back a few years when Tai team, Mr. Cooper did a presentation from place to place under some organization of which he worked where he sat down with parents and people. This was in the east end in the community and Matt Stanley has done it as well
065across the city. brought the postcards, told, "Help the parents, help the teachers, help the students, whomever came. We shouldn't have to guess at this point and say, "Send a letter, do this, do that." You have to teach us. If you want to train us and lead us, you have to teach us. And they know how to do this. They have done this before. So sometimes we get comfortable even though we all are at it, but we all are asking for a 10 million. What I'm going to ask for 43 in the seventh district, we we got to roll. So my my my point with that is if we know there's a solution that works. In the past we had a day at the capital. My question to Mr. Stanley is if we're going to have
066a day at the capital or two across the state of Virginia. I haven't heard anything about it. I have my red scarf though. In fact, it's in my bag right now because I do wear it every day association. We're supposed to have a big assembly here on the 20 on Monday and Tuesday but now because of the weather and it's one of the best ever. We do the whole not only those persons of whom we call that always support us but we have to get those persons who don't support public education and that's the change right now in the house in the general assembly. So my question is madam chair if we can have can Mr. Mr. Stanley I know he's not on the agenda but I don't want to leave here this evening as
067Mr. Jafar said people are calling and they are already and texting tell me where you want us to be and what you want to do and seventh district schools will be there across the city they should all be there but we we we are learners. You're the teacher. We need to know the information and so far as 10 million uh why am I going to ask for a Volkswagen when I can have a Mercedes? Thank you. and I drive. Well, yeah. No, it's not. Well, Volvo is not. Yeah, never mind. >> Good evening, um, Mr. Stanley, and Dr. Greenville as well. >> Good evening, Madam Chair, superintendent, cameras, board members. Um, thank you all for your comments this evening and, uh, for all the confidence that you quite apparently have in me to do this
068work. It's quite an honor to do this work and represent the school board, the administration, all of our families, all of our students, all of our teachers of the general assembly. Uh we have already been testifying on behalf of many bills that would support Richmond public schools and the needs that we have. Um several bills specifically in regards to equity and funding the bills that uh Miss Dixon Fernandez and Superintendent Hammers have shared with you tonight. Um in specific uh response to your questions, Mrs. B. Um, we have been having some wonderful advocacy activities already this session. We had a few trainings a couple weeks ago. Um, uh, you yourself drove down 95 and saw our fund our schools light up signs, our light brigade that we did in partnership with the Richmond Education Association.
069Um, so we are already out of the gate with some wonderful trainings. Uh, we did a screen printing event last week. We printed 300 fund schools posters that we will be distributing throughout the city. Um, the weather's posing a few challenges for us. Um but nonetheless there are some wonderful events coming up. Um if you go to our website rbaschools.net advocacy uh there is a email signup form on that page and that is where you will be able to find any information regarding our legislative priorities other updates that I am providing to the board and to the public. Um during session I do try to do weekly email updates with the very concrete steps that everyone can take. Uh there will be form letters in there. There will be little explainers about different bills that
070are being considered by the general assembly. Uh we will do our best to keep you up to date as much as possible with what is ahead on the schedule. Um many committees and many bills do schedule things in very short notice. We sometimes have less than 24 hours notice when a bill is going to be heard, but nonetheless we try to get really good good actionable information out to you. Um, we uh were having a few hiccups with some locations, but we sorted it out and on February 2nd, we will have an RPS advocacy day. Uh, we will have that email out to you by Monday with all of those details. Um, so stay tuned for that information. And then the biggest day, which I would encourage everyone in the city of Richmond to come
071out for because we really do need a very, very strong show of force, uh, is President's Day. I believe the date is February 16th and that is the Virginia Education Association state advocacy day. Um it is a holiday so it is a wonderful day for people to come out and show your support of public education that day. Please bring your kids. Please wear red. Please uh get a poster from us or make your own poster about funding schools. Um that can be a really impactful day. In recent years uh we have I will be candid. We have not had a lot of people down on Capitol Square and it's a bit of a murmur. We need to make a ruckus that day. We need for the legislators inside of the Capitol building to not be
072able to conduct their business because we are making so much noise on Capitol Square. So, please, please, please come down on February 16th. That is one of the most impactful days when a show of force with as many numbers as possible help make a difference. >> Can you add that to our calendars if you have not already? Thank you. >> Absolutely. And again, our website rbaschools.net/advocacy. That is where you can sign up for direct email updates from me. Um, and a lot more information about our legislative priorities, form letters, our training slides, lots of really wonderful information. And, uh, if any board members would like to facilitate a district meeting where we do an advocacy training, I'd be happy to do those alongside you. Please let me know what dates you would like to do
073that and we'll get that set up as well. I'm happy to do those at any point. What is the time frame in terms of what's the best time frame for us to do that if we were to set up a a meeting or a town hall >> now through late February >> any day anytime whatever you think works best for yourself and your constituents. >> Thank you. And uh colleagues, I've just sent you the advocacy link for the website. So you all have that. Miss Burke and then Miss Rizzie. >> Thank you Mrs. Stanley. Thank you so much. And yes, I enjoyed making my t-shirt. I started to wear it tonight, but I didn't know whether I'm going wear it on February the 3rd. >> Wednesdays. We wear red on Wednesdays. >> Oh, and I
074wear them every day. >> That's right. >> But thank you so much for that on Wednesdays. Okay. So, I'll get it straight. Um, my ask is I'm going to go on this advocacy and I hope that it will be on our RPS direct as well, but my ask is, and I haven't looked at that link yet, so if I'm out of order, please let me know. On that advocacy link, does it list we need money for teachers, we need money for specialists, we need money for tutors, we need money to keep summer school open, we need or is it just a general, we need money for to continue to function. I don't want a general letter. I need something specific. So, we need money to keep continue 200 day schools moving. And that is a
075question I want to ask later. So is there anything such as that? >> Not yet. >> Okay. But my the reason I'm asking that is for the people of whom I know that I will get the opportunity to work with and that will be with me to sit down together at the rec center or wherever power tan hut or whatever they will do it. But we just need that time is precious. They have children. They have to go to work two and three jobs. But if I have a postcard and we can just write on it, I need money for afterchool programs. I need money for or whatever the two gentlemen we stated earlier that um Superintendent cameras I believe mentioned regarding getting that LCI or whatever else addressed. That's that's that's what I need.
076Nothing fancy. Just cut to the chase. So that's my ask. Thank you. So, just to add on to what u Mr. Stanley said, not yet, but it is in the works. And I would like to note that for the past couple of years, Matthew has designed alongside our communications team a beautiful two pager um so that it tells you everything that we're looking for or what we're advocating for. So, it is in the works. Um and then on top of that, we have really been drilling down um amongst us in the administration talking about um what we would what we may be able to speak with our legislators about in terms of if we were to get this amount of money then we would be able to bring back x amount of things. Um and
077so we have been in discussion with that. Um thank you to Mr. Stanley for leading that but it is in the works. We're just trying to fine-tune it, make sure that it has the appropriate branding for RPS, um, and that we are very precise in our asks so that our colleagues, our families, whomever shows up, uh, for the events that Mr. Stanley has been organizing, they know exactly what to say and how to engage with our our our legislative. >> Miss Rosie, thank you, Madam Chair. Um I you know I think I want to address another um somewhat interesting elephant in the room and that has to do with our average daily membership um that's hurting us and you know I know that in some political circles people have questioned the value of public school
078and when you don't support public schools. I mean, first of all, you have to stay in order to work with us to make things better. We need you to send your children to public schools and our schools are very high quality. We have excellent educators working in our schools. And so, um, that is something we also want to, I think, look at is, you know, we want to talk to families. We want to bring people back to RPS because that average daily membership does actually cause us, is that right, Mr. Stanley, to lose a bit of funding that we desperately need. Uh yeah, Madam Chair, Mrs. RZY, uh you are correct. Our average daily membership is one of the largest drivers of our LCI being quite high. Um the average daily membership is the average
079of our student enrollment over the course of the entire school year. Um I know I have previously at one point said that attendance was a factor in average daily membership. It is not. It is was incorrect in that previously. is just based on enrollment, the average of that over over the course of the school year. Um, but as compared to the overall population of our locality, our school enrollment, our ADM is a little bit lower than what the average driving up our driving up our LCI and our share of costs. >> Mr. Pival, >> just real quick, Mr. Stanley, before you go anywhere, just to follow up on that, not only does ADM affect the LCI, but later on in the calculations for per student funding, it is reapplied alongside of LCI for additional calculations.
080Is that true? >> Yes. Our per pupil funding is measured by the by our ADM. So that is how much funding we get in total. But that is after the LCI has already been applied to our per pupil funding. >> Correct. So ADM is being applied twice. >> Yes. So Miss Rizzy's point that it is the single greatest driver of LCI and then you get hit with again a per pupil funding. Incredible algorithm. >> M Rard. Thank you Madam Chair. Um, this is getting back to a little about what Miss Burke was discussing, but I know we are um having a town hall on February 9th at River City at 6 PM to discuss the budget and give opportunity for feedback. I almost wonder if we could talk offline about maybe having postcards available in
081case people would like to write them while they're there. I'm assuming they would still have an impact and we could talk about paying for postage from our from our district funds or if there's a way we can support that all together. Um, but I thought that might be a good way um to to help and also get them and we could have if they want to write about OST, if they want to write about summer school, they could that. So, um, we were just whispering as you were talking because it got us fired up. I feel like I definitely feel the energy in the room. I think we're all fired up and we want to see change. Um, and so to to double click on that, right? We could prepare those on the night of
082our meeting and then the next day we could walk them over to the appropriate people um that are in partnership. And I failed to mention um some amazing other partners at with the delegation. Delegate Carr, Delegate uh Cousins, Delegate McQuinn um and all the others that I mentioned earlier have been amazing advocates for RPS and I know they would be on board and in support of anything that could amplify the message out to the people. Um Mr. Hedgepath. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to share to uh Mr. Mr. Stanley, you don't have to come come up here, but I wanted to share I was at [clears throat] a uh PTA meeting yesterday at Westto Hills Elementary and they raved about you as uh as our our guy here, right? They were very
083very proud of the work that you do for us and as our chair has said in the past, give people flowers when when you can. and so uh they are so appreciative and they said that you're the best. So, >> thank you. >> Any other thoughts before we conclude? >> Well, we want to thank you again for the hard work that is put into this budget um proposal. We'll remind the public that this is a proposal. There's still opportunity to share, advocate, give feedback. um and and tell us what um is important to you. We do have a town hall that is coming up as we've shared earlier on February 9th at uh River City Middle School at 6:00 p.m. This is an opportunity for you to really share your thoughts with the board and
084um we'll have somewhat of agenda. However, it'll it'll definitely be an opportunity uh in an informal capacity. Sometimes we are constrained um with how these uh special meetings and budget meetings are set up. So this is a great space for you to come out and just share. We're going to provide a QR code for those that would like to ask questions ahead of time. I don't know if that's ready yet. U if not, it will be in the next couple of days. So you can ask your questions ahead of time. and we will still give space for those who would like to ask questions and share feedback the day of. Um again, our hearts go out to those that receive notices today. Um we uh as a board was essential to ensure that um we
085were very intentional about um ensuring that resources are provided. Uh so if you know if you feel like that has not happened, please uh feel free to reach out to us. But I believe that there was a plan of action put in place to ensure that resources would be available to you um at that time. And so I would just uh end by saying thank you to my colleagues as somebody has already shared the work has already begun. We have not stopped. We've been advocating all last year and the days and weeks. I forgot which days and all of the things cuz I think every day um I've been out personally talking with leadership and I know others have. We actually have created um a Google um uh uh signup sheet for uh to have
086opportunity for all the board members to be a partner. So, if you have not signed up already, um please be sure to do that to give your opportunity to go to the general um assembly and share your thoughts. And if there's anything that you're passionate about, there's an opportunity for you to advocate in person. And so, we would um encourage you to continue to do that. Special thanks to Miss Ricard for leading the initiative for the legislative committee. It's been amazing work that has been done this far. We've just scratched the surface. And with that, we want to thank you so much. We'll end um it here and we look forward to hearing from you in the next uh up and coming days and weeks. Thank you.