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The Southampton County School Board voted 7-2 on Monday, June 9, to approve the revised fiscal year 2025-26 school operating budget that involved adaptation to a more than $2.4 million cut compared to what the school system had requested in local funding.

School Board Members Natalie Dever King and Dr. Jennifer Tindle voted “No” on the budget approval vote.

Southampton County Public Schools Director of Finance Joy Carr presented the revised budget at the board’s June 9 meeting.

She noted that on May 27, the Southampton County Board of Supervisors (BOS) approved $11,644,980 in local funding for the School Board operating budget.

“This amount is $2,404,076 less than requested, and we’ve been talking about this over the last couple months because (this funding amount) was what they had recommended,” she said, referring to the BOS. “They did include some additional funding for the purchase of the school buses, but basically level funding for the operating budget.”

She said the budget book presented to School Board members on Monday included cuts that had been reviewed and approved by the School Board’s Budget Committee.

“All the additional positions that we requested have been removed,” she said. “These include the one special education teacher at Nottoway (Elementary School) and Riverdale (Elementary School), two special ed teachers at the high school, one kindergarten parapro(fessional) at Nottoway, one at Riverdale and one at Fresh Start and the seven float pool staff members for the substitute teacher pool.

“Other positions removed include the assistant superintendent, one vacant social worker and 15 instructional staff members,” she continued. “Now if we maintain our current enrollment, which currently reported as of March 31 was 2,211, if we can maintain that enrollment, then we can retain these 15 (instructional staff) positions. But right now with the way the state has projected our enrollment at 2,114, in order to balance the budget we need to remove those 15 instructional positions.”

She noted that the 3% salary increase for SCPS employees was left in the budget.

“And the reason we are leaving that in is because the state is actually giving us funding for that of $832,701,” she said. “So even though we have had to cut the $2.4 million, which was drastic, we felt like we needed to keep that 3% in. And like I said, if our enrollment comes in higher than what the state has predicted, then those additional funds, about $10,000 per student — we’ll be able to reappropriate that funding and put some of these positions back in.”

Tindle said, “In the years that you’ve been here, how accurate would you say that the state projection has been as far as our enrollment?”

Carr said, “I would say that even this year, after they revised their numbers in December, that we came in higher than what they predicted. It just seems like the trend over the last several years is that we have lost enrollment; so what they do is they look at that trend. 

“And so what I’m hoping is that we will make a turn and that we will get some of our students back and all, but it’s hard to say,” she continued. “That’s why we have to make these drastic cuts and balance the budget, because we’re not going to know until we get that Sept. 30 enrollment.

“Now we certainly can start some of these positions off under (Memorandums of Understanding) to see what our enrollment comes in at, if that’s an option,” she added. “That’s up to you all. But in order to balance the budget, we do need to take them out. I’m certainly hoping that (the state’s estimated enrollment) number is low for next year, like drastically low. I would like to see us get at least another extra hundred kids, which would give us a million dollars.”

King asked about special education teachers automatically being taken out of the budget and requested to see the school system’s current number of students with disabilities and the current caseload numbers for existing teachers.

“For those just to be automatically cut, our students with disabilities is a population that we should be pouring extra into,” she said. “So I’d like to see the caseloads now.”

She said Nottoway Elementary School is probably over the caseload requirement.

Carr said, “As far as caseloads, we may have more than we need like at the middle school or so forth. I think the high school, they just wanted to do it a little different at the high school, but I do understand the Nottoway situation, and I believe, if I’m not mistaken, that when you look at those numbers you’ll see that we have a little bit of flexibility where we might could cover that.”

Tindle asked if the 15 instructional staff members mentioned by Carr are positions that are currently unfilled.

“No, they’re filled,” SCPS Superintendent Dr. Gwendolyn P. Shannon said.

Tindle said, “So if we choose to approve this tonight, we’re talking about 15 people finding out this week that they don’t have jobs for next year?”

Shannon said this was not necessarily the case, as MOUs are an intervening factor, and staff’s situations are different.

“Some of our employees may not be properly licensed, or they’re on a provisional license that’s expiring, and they may be a long-term sub or something like that,” she said. “We have a number of teachers, but not every teacher has the exact same type of certification. So again, we looked at the budget, and initially we cut about 20 positions based on attrition, but in order for me to get the numbers down to $2.4 million, which is what the budget cut is, you’ve got to go into personnel at this point. That’s where we are.”

“And I understand that,” Tindle said. “I just want to make sure that it’s June the 9th and we’re not telling people in the next week, ‘Sorry, we don’t have the money to pay you,’ and they think they’re coming back, or they’ve been offered a contract. Even provisional licensed teachers were offered contracts, correct?”

“No,” Shannon said. “No one has been offered a contract yet, and people who will be told this have been talked to all year about getting their license. So we meet with people who are not properly licensed throughout the year to try to find out where they are and what efforts they’re making to obtain a provisional license or a standard license.

“And so as we meet with them, we’re letting them know that, ‘If you are not able to fulfill these requirements within this amount of time, then it’s possible that we will not be able to employ you,’” she continued. “Some of these people have been on our payroll eight, nine years, five years and still have not done what they need to do to obtain a standard license.

“So again, that’s where we are,” she added. “We are having conversations, they’re tough conversations to have, but none of them should be blindsided because we’ve been meeting with them year after year after year, having the same conversation. The only difference is that this year, it may actually happen, because we really have to cut the budget.”

“OK,” Tindle said. “So when will staff be getting contracts?”

“Once the board approves the appointment list,” Shannon said.