The Fairfax County School Board will adopt the FY 2025 Approved Budget on Thursday, May 23.
From the beginning of the Fairfax County School Board budget discussions in January of this year, Dunne and some of the other school board representatives objected to any pay raise for administrators, especially those already earning more than $200,000. Dunne argues that the pay raise should focus on teachers and support staff, including cafeteria workers, custodians, librarians, school bus drivers, and school counselors.
“These are the people who educate, feed, transport and care for our children during the school day, and they are the ones who deserve a salary increase this year,” Dunne said. “Every single dollar should be spent to ensure they receive fair and just compensation.”
The school board approved the FY25 Budget Priorities Resolution on Jan. 25, 2024.
The resolution directed Reid to include competitive pay with consideration ‘for differentiated pay for hard-to-fill positions, such as teachers in Title I schools and special education teachers.”
“Instead, the superintendent proposed an across-the-board 6 percent pay raise for all FCPS employees, including herself,” Dunne said.
Dunne wrote in an email that currently the superintendent “earns more than the president [of the United States] and her chief of staff is paid more than the secretary of defense.
“It is unconscionable to increase the pay of administrators at a time when our teachers are overworked and underpaid,” Dunne said.
An outcry from some Fairfax County Public Schools staff and others erupted at last week’s budget public hearings as Fairfax County Public Schools attempted to finalize its fiscal year 2025 budget, currently written with Reid’s recommended compensation adjustment at 3.0 percent instead of 6.0 percent for all staff. State and county funds for schools came in at less than the schools budget hoped for. The county budget came in $89,028,182 less for schools than FCPS had budgeted, and state revenue was also reduced by $16,291,557 less than FCPS budgeted.
But Fairfax County Public Schools annual FY 2024 budget will increase from $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion in FY 2025.
Dunne states, “In particular, the county is providing an additional $165 million, which results in the FY 2025 budget being the largest budget increase for FCPS in over ten years,” Dunne added.