HARRISONBURG, Va. – Each member of the Harrisonburg City School Board voted on next year’s school operating budget at their meeting Tuesday night.

The proposed $118 million budget is an increase of more than $4 million from last year, with the school division’s operating and maintenance budget seeing the largest increase next year by more than 10 percent. Budgets for transportation and personnel both increased by just under a half-million dollars, and more than $5 million was added for instructional aid.

School board member Kaylene Seigle acknowledged that the budget was a significant jump from previous years, but explained the context behind the increase before the board voted. Those included the need to cover expenses related to Rocktown High School.

“I do recognize that this proposed budget is $4 million in increase, and that is huge, obviously because we have a second high school opening up,” Seigle said. “But also I believe, in the past three years, there has been an increase in the budget in order for this proposed budget to not be such a humongous jump.”

Superintendent Michael Richards followed Seigle’s comment to explain the incremental increases in the years leading up to the 2025 fiscal year.

“The numbers we’ve put forward in the past three years have been rather conservative, in fact one year there was a zero-dollar increase for our local appropriation because we were anticipating a bigger increase in opening Rocktown [High School],” Richards said.

Richards also clarified that they frontloaded positions at Harrisonburg High School to address a constantly growing student body, and so that some faculty could be transferred to Rocktown High School.

“We’ve split the two schools, as you know, and there are lots and lots of positions that are still needed,” Richards said. “We did frontload a lot of those to try and smooth out the burden on the city.”

Following the board’s vote, the school operating budget will be presented to Harrisonburg City Council for approval and inclusion in the city’s FY 2025 budget, which is currently being drafted.

Richards also said the Virginia budget recently passed by the General Assembly favors public education by about $1.6 million. However, other factors, such as Governor Glenn Youngkin’s slew of vetoes at the end of the General Asssembly’s session, mean that a possible increase in K-12 funding isn’t guaranteed.

“It doesn’t mean that money is coming and we’re just waiting for it, it means we hope that the final state budget will look like that one, and not the governor’s original proposed budget,” Richards said.

The state budget passed by Youngkin last year included pay increases for faculty and staff in all Virginia public schools. Raises for Harrisonburg teachers went into effect in January.