City Council and School Board Joint Work Session on FY27 Budget - March 13, 2026
City Council and School Board Joint Work Session on FY27 Budget - March 13, 2026
This joint work session on March 13, 2026, brought together the Alexandria City Council and School Board to discuss the fiscal year 2027 budget. The city presented its proposed $977 million general fund budget, including a $286 million operating transfer to Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS), a $13 million increase over FY25. ACPS requested a $292 million appropriation, leaving a $5.6 million gap. The meeting focused on revenue challenges, collective bargaining costs, teacher compensation competitiveness, and potential cuts or tax increases.
Discussion Items
- City Budget Presentation (Mayor Gaskins): Mayor Gaskins outlined economic pressures, including federal workforce changes, rising unemployment, and reduced consumer spending. The city's budget does not propose a tax increase, but 63% of residents will see higher property tax bills due to assessment increases. The city allocated $7 million for first-year collective bargaining costs (police, fire, admin, technical, labor and trades) and cut $9 million and 46 vacant positions to balance. Debt service for capital projects is projected to rise from $48 million in FY27 to $105 million by FY36. The city proposed moving to a
major classificationallocation method for ACPS starting in FY28, with a resolution of intent on March 10. - ACPS Budget Presentation (School Board Chair): The school board chair detailed ACPS's $292 million request, emphasizing the need to fund a historic first collective bargaining agreement with the Education Association of Alexandria, maintain class sizes, and address rising costs. ACPS has reduced its budget by $7.7 million for FY27, including eliminating 10.5 non-instructional FTEs, 3.3 instructional FTEs, a 5% cut to non-personnel spending ($2.2 million), shifting health care premium splits (licensed staff from 80/20 to 75/25; support staff from 90/10 to 85/15), and capturing $1.9 million in VRS savings. Regional teacher pay dropped from 1st to 7th in starting salary for master's degree holders. The presentation outlined three paths: fully fund the request, implement painful cuts (e.g., increasing class sizes, eliminating middle school athletics, reducing student support), or reopen collective bargaining negotiations.
- Q&A and Council Member Comments: Councilmember Elnewby questioned the link between increased funding and stagnant student outcomes, calling for better data. Mayor Gaskins asked about criteria for cuts; the school board cited state mandates and instructional priorities. Councilmember Chapman noted the city's collective bargaining costs required cutting overtime and police base budgets, and emphasized the need for systematic changes. Councilmember Shosha highlighted that 87% of ACPS's budget is personnel. Councilmember Aguirre pointed out the city operates with the same staff levels as 2008 despite 20,000-30,000 additional residents. Councilmember Green inquired about state funding for at-risk students and grant renewals. Dr. Simpson Baird asked about fund balance usage (city using $30 million in FY27, approaching 15% policy floor) and the impact of reducing cash capital by $5.6 million (would require $56 million in CIP cuts over 10 years). Councilmember Chapman suggested shared services, regional health care pooling, and exploring higher non-personnel cuts. School board members responded with plans to examine regional partnerships, technology savings, and strategic use of buildings.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken; the meeting was a work session to share information and discuss options.
- The city will set the maximum tax rate on March 10, but no consensus on a tax increase exists (one council member supports it).
- The school board will continue to advocate in Richmond for increased state funding, including for English learner and special education students.
- Both bodies expressed commitment to collaboration, with ongoing dialogue through liaisons and future meetings to close the $5.6 million gap.
- Potential next steps include further exploration of shared services, technology efficiencies, and alternative revenue sources.
Meeting Transcript
All right, good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone. We're gonna go ahead and get started. All right, good evening, everyone. If I could have your attention, please. All right, good evening, everyone. Good evening. I'm uh excited to welcome everyone this evening to the school board uh meeting room for the city council uh school board joint work session on the FY27 budget. And uh we did get can you hear me now? Do I need to start the whole thing over? Okay, all right. All right, well, welcome everyone to the City Council School Board work session on the FY27 budget. Um I just mentioned a couple members that we have joining us virtually this evening, and um at this time I'm gonna turn it over to Mayor Gaskin so that she can go ahead and do the city presentation. Oh, we're first, remember? No. Well, we don't have our do we? I think so. Okay. We're ready to go. I'm happy to go at any time, always prepared. Um but so whenever we get it loaded, let's rock and roll. It's always different when you're not facilitating and you uh come in with an agenda and then it switches. Okay. Uh let's see, is there a clicker here? All right. Okay, well, good evening, everyone. Um, let's dive into the fiscal year 2027 budget for the city. I don't think many of I mean much of what we will present should be familiar because it was presented in the manager's budget. But what we hope to go over today is really the context in which we prepared this budget, the proposed operating budget for our transfer for ACPS, talking about our capital budget as well, and then finally ending with changes to how the council will be moving forward in FY28 with our allocations to ACPS. And let's slide. So when we prepare the budget, part of what we have to focus on is what else is happening around us, recognizing that no budget is prepared in a vacuum, but it is really based on local, regional, national, as well as global context. When you think about our city, some things that have been impacting our community are really changes at the federal level, um, particularly changes to the federal workforce. We are a city that has over 13,000 federal workers. We are also a city that is starting to see rising unemployment. And so recognizing kind of what type of economic situation our residents are navigating. This year, some of the other factors impacting the state of the budget were just how we're seeing changes in other tax revenue. What you this shouldn't be a surprise, but as the economy is uncertain, people are spending less. When they spend less, that means they're not going out to eat as much. That means they're not staying in hotels as much. Um, and so really looking at how that impacts our overall budget. The manager's proposed budget is about 977 million dollars. ACPS continues to represent about a third of our budget and is the fastest growing section in our budget. One of the things I find most interesting is when you look at some of the other categories like safe, secure, and just that represents public safety. That's the next highest, and it's not one department, it is police, fire, sheriff, deck, and multiple emergency management as well. And so multiple other departments across the 30 something that we have in the city are really sharing the bulk of the rest of our funding. In terms of where our revenue comes from, the largest source of our revenue is really the places where people live. And so looking at property taxes related to single family condominium, as well as multifamily apartments as well. And you can get a deeper dive on this. Uh, should you wish? So this year we were presented with the calendar year 2026 property tax assessments.
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