The Prince William County School Board reached * 6-2 consensus Wednesday night to offer an additional one percent pay increase to its employees. However, to make that a reality, the Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) would have to vote to adopt the advertised tax rate, or provide more funding to the school division.
At a budget mark-up session, School Board members voted to adopt a modification by Superintendent Dr. Steven L. Walts to his original FY 2015 budget plan that would effectively increase Prince William County School (PWCS) salary increases from 1 percent to 2 percent paid for by the county.
However, this level of pay increase remains dependent on the actions of the Board of County Supervisors (BOCS).
“The additional funding would be realized only if the county adopts in April the $1.158 tax rate it advertised on February 27,” wrote Phil Kavits, Director of Communications for PWCS, in a statement to school division employees.
“Under the latest changes to the evolving School Board budget plan, all PWCS employees would receive a two percent pay plan adjustment [in addition to a one percent hike to offset this year's cost to employees of the state mandated shift in responsibility for Virginia Retirement System Contributions],” Kavits wrote.
These two percent raises would be the only pay increase PWCS employees would receive from the county; it is not in addition to step or cost of living increases.
This pay increase was proposed by Potomac School Board member Betty Covington, and was supported by the Prince William Education Association (PWEA) as well as the Prince William Federation of Teachers. Both organizations have said that a two percent pay raise is similar to what other county employees receive. Additionally, it is incentive to stay in the district despite rising class sizes, which those organizations have also rallied to reduce.
However, the question remains: will the advertised tax rate be adopted? Recent history demonstrates that supervisors prefer to adopt a lower tax rate than advertised. However, given the demand for county resources and new employees across the board in aspects of government including education, public safety, and parks and recreation, there is always the possibility that the pendulum will swing the other away.
Chairman At-large Corey Stewart (R) said he is “not focused on a particular tax rate,” but he is focused on funding priorities for the county. He names public safety and funding class size reduction as primary priorities and parks and libraries as secondary priorities.
"[We have] to address the classroom size, hire police and fire fighters while keeping the tax rate as low as possible,” he said. He also said he is “not opposed to a salary increase for teachers.”
Stewart said he wants to begin to reinstate county funding for personnel and amenities as it was before the recession, but doing so is proving more difficult than he expected.
“Unfortunately, what happens is tax payers get accustomed to flat or decreasing tax bills and that is just not sustainable," Stewart said.
Most supervisors will be looking to their constituents to hear what they see as funding priorities and how much they are willing to spend to fund those priorities. Western end supervisors Peter Candland (R-Gainesville) and Wally Covington (R-Brentsville) tend to be fiscally conservative.
Candland had said he wants to fund pay increases for teachers but would rather find savings in the budget than raise taxes to do so. Covington has been critical of the way in which the School Board spends its money, and said he would feel more comfortable if the School Board could adopt zero based budgeting.
However, should the General Assembly appoint Covington to a judgeship, he might not be able to cast a vote to adopt the tax rate.
Kavits reminded employees that there are several meetings in which citizens could weigh in on the issue of pay increases and taxes.
On March 19, PWCS will hold a public hearing at the Kelley Leadership Center to approve the budget and capital improvement program; On April 1, the School Board presents the PWCS budget to the supervisors at the McCoart Building; and April 29, the BOCS is scheduled to set the tax rate at the McCoart Building.
* PWCS stated in their Wednesday letter to staff that the vote was "unanimous." However, they corrected that statement Friday, saying the board took a "straw" vote to adopt a modified version of the superintendent's budget for FY15. That vote passed 6-2. Gil Trenum (Brentsville) and Alyson Satterwhite (Gainesville) voted against it. Trenum said that he proposed to a reduction in class sizes that was supported by Satterwhite and Chairman Milt Johns, but failed to the the necessary votes. Additionally there was overall support for the pay increase, but the straw vote was on the entire budget (so those voting against it may have had other objections.)
The original version of this article said that the vote was "unanimous."
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