ROANOKE, Va. – Update:
After a tense months-long budget battle, the Roanoke City School Board approved its $317 total million budget for the next fiscal year without further discussion, including $272 million in the general fund.
This comes after tensions rose between school leaders and the city over funding.
The school district is left with $6.7 million less than expected after Roanoke City Council’s proposed budget included level, not formula-based, funding for schools.
“That’s a big adjustment,” said Board Chair Dr. Eli Jamison. “There’s been a lot of uncertainty.
Several employees spoke out against the district delaying giving out $1,000 retention state-funded bonuses.
“A lot of people were very upset that they were going to have to wait throughout the entire summer and a month into the school year before they actually saw their money,” said Randy Blair, an RCPS employee.
“We really needed this money,” said another employee, Vanesha Johnson.
Jamison said the board heard the employees loud and clear Tuesday night.
“Hearing from them tonight made it clear they want that money sooner than later, so we’re going to make that happen for them. But it does take a little bit of processing and rearranging the budget to make sure that that money—which we just received—actually gets turned around more quickly," she said. “In an organization our size, it just isn’t as fast as it is for some of the smaller divisions.”
Board members also stressed the new budget is tight, but that they won’t operate in the red.
“Things are changing in terms of how we are going to be doing things going forward. And so that just makes a stressful process, right, because it has systemic impacts,” said Jamison.
The board also said the approved budget includes funding to hire nurses since the district’s contract with Carilion Clinic is ending.
Original:
The Roanoke City Public School Board will be meeting today to approve its budget for the 2026 fiscal year.
The School Board is required to approve a budget for the upcoming year before the July 1 start of each budget year.
According to the board agenda, the proposed budget is set to include the following:
- $159.3 million in projected state revenues across all funds (2.4% increase)
- $106.9 million in projected local funding from the city of Roanoke
- $27.4 million in projected federal grant funding (2% increase)
The proposed budget is also set to include an average 2.5% scale/step combined raise for all positions and new positions for instructional and student support positions.