Isle of Wight County’s School Board voted unanimously on March 18 to adopt a $103 million budget for 2025-26 that seeks a $6.6 million, or 20%, increase in local funding.

It’s a slightly smaller ask than the $6.8 million increase Superintendent Dr. Theo Cramer proposed last month.

Isle of Wight County’s 2024 contribution of $33.2 million to the school system amounted to a nearly 31% share of the $107 million 2024-25 general fund budget. By comparison, the $27.4 million Isle of Wight contributed to the school system in 2019-20 amounted to a roughly 35% share of that year’s county budget. Cramer, in February, urged restoring the 35% local share now that Isle of Wight County Schools is no longer receiving millions in federal COVID-19 relief dollars that expired last year.

The School Board is scheduled to present its adopted budget and funding request at a March 27 joint meeting with the Board of Supervisors. Last year, the supervisors voted to “lump sum,” rather than categorically, fund the school system, allowing the School Board to allocate the local funding as needed based on its ranked list of priorities.

The School Board’s adopted budget calls for teachers to receive state-mandated 3% raises on top of the 1% to 2% annual increases they’re due under the school division’s 35-step pay scale. The School Board listed restoring the step increases, which were frozen last year, as its top funding priority for 2025-26. Funding for career and technical education, equipment repairs and security enhancements also ranked high.

To make school nursing positions more competitive with non-school nursing jobs, the budget includes $5,388 stipends for lead nurses and $1,616 stipends for lead clinic assistants. Beta Club assistants would also receive a $6,466 stipend.

 

What got cut?

The School Board’s adopted budget calls for $4.5 million in cuts to what Cramer had proposed. The majority is tied to a $3.5 million reduction in the budgeted cost of replacing the division’s circa-1955 bus garage, which isn’t designed to accommodate modern buses. Cramer’s proposal had allocated $7.5 million for the project in a 2025-26 capital improvements plan for one-time expenses that’s separate from the operating budget.

The capital improvements plan, which previously totaled $10.6 million in February, now totals $6.4 million.

The adopted operating budget totals $103.2 million across six separate funds; $86.4 million is allotted to the general fund that pays most operating expenses. It’s a roughly 0.1% reduction from the $103.3 million total budget and $86.5 million general fund Cramer proposed in February.

Cramer’s proposal had called for 15 new positions, including two reading interventionists, a math interventionist, an instructional assistant in welding, three special education self-contained elementary teachers, a career and technical education director, three library assistants, an attendance clerk, two additional school security officers and a human resources coordinator. The adopted budget cuts the library assistants and attendance clerk for savings of just over $163,000.

The budget now includes funding for a registered behavior technician and two clinic assistants at just over $149,000.

The adopted budget also cuts $160,741 in funding for Promethean interactive whiteboards, also known as smartboards.

The adopted capital improvements plan now calls for the purchase of five new school buses rather than six, and the removal of funding for two 15-passenger activity buses and two passenger vans for a combined savings of $676,500.

Cramer, in February, said one in three of the division’s buses still exceed their expected lifespan of 15 years or over 300,000 miles. The division was previously allotted funding for five buses at the start of the current year and aims to replace at least that many per year.

The capital improvements plan still includes $1.4 million for a renovation of the Smithfield High School band room that parents have been requesting for years.

Just over a third, or $2.4 million, of requested $6.6 million increase in local funding is tied to mandatory spending, including the 3% raises, an expected $1.6 million increase in health care costs and a $120,681, or 3%, increase in the division’s contract with ABM to outsource custodial, groundskeeping and maintenance services.