The Alexandria City Public School Board approved Superintendent Alvin Crawley’s $305 million 2016-2025 Capital Improvement Plan Budget, including $42 million for the 2016 fiscal year, at its Feb. 5 meeting. However, School Board staff said they were uncertain how receptive the City Council would be to this budget, given that a previous conversation with the City Manager’s office had set the cap on spending to $38 million and emphasized that even that number would be a stretch.
Several School Board members expressed concerns about the budget, though the eventual vote was unanimously in favor.
“I have concerns about putting a track at two schools,” said School Board member Patricia Hennig. “I am concerned about the inequitable status of the playrounds, and I would hope that if we do this we will make sure some attention is on building health and safety … I’m not happy voting for this. My heart is not in this.”
School Board member Marc Williams echoed some of Hennig’s concerns and said he agreed with some of the staff’s concerns that the City Council would not be as favorable towards a budget that was $4 million over the previously established funding cap.
“I am still concerned about the process,” said Williams. “When we look at the circumstances of the city, we are stewards of the taxpayer’s dollars and I’m going to be keeping that in mind.”
However, School Board Chair Karen Graf said that, despite members of the school board’s personal reservations, the group needed to vote in approval of the budget in a show of unanimity.
“There’s always going to be parts of a budget you may not love, but you have to look at the grander scheme moving forward,” Graf said.
From the audience, Alexandria resident and former School Board candidate Joyce Rawlings said the School Board needed to keep the difference between needs and wants in mind. In her own life, Rawlings said she had to choose between paying for a car and paying for her son’s college. Her son had to choose between crew team or focusing on academics. It’s a decision that defines the budgets of government bodies as well as individuals.
“$900,000 to light a football field when we cannot educate our students,” Rawlings said, referencing the School Board’s decision to move forward with a lighting plan at T.C. Williams against the wishes of nearby residents, “Need or want?”