In what the city manager called a “very tight” budget year, the city of Roanoke is looking at keeping its schools funding flat, as well as increasing the meals tax and the EMS transport fee, in order to raise compensation for city employees and address backlogged maintenance to city buildings.
At a special city council meeting Monday, City Manager Valmarie Turner presented her proposed fiscal year 2026 budget to the council. She titled the presentation “Challenges and Choices,” and it was a theme she returned to repeatedly during her talk.
“Very tough choices will need to be made,” Turner said. “Stablilizing the budget is not a one-time task. We will continue to monitor and adjust the budget over the next five years.”
Her proposed budget totals $403.7 million, an increase of 6.5% over the current budget of $379.1 million.
At the end of the presentation, council members did not ask any questions of Turner or make any comments regarding the proposed changes. The city will hold a series of work sessions and public meetings about the budget in April and May.
Budget includes money for pay raises, maintenance
Turner said providing a living wage for all city employees is one of her main goals in this budget season.
The budget proposal earmarks almost $10 million for pay increases. During a March 3 joint meeting of the city council and the school board, Turner said the city is trying to bring its internal minimum wage to over $20 an hour.
Turner did not propose any personal property or real estate tax rate increases, but she did recommend increasing the meals tax by 0.5%, which would bring Roanoke’s rate to 6%. A meals tax increase was suggested by the city’s independent financial advisor, Davenport.
Turner said the increase would bring in an additional $2.02 million in revenue, which would be used to address backlogged HVAC, electrical, roofing and elevator maintenance in city buildings. It also would allow the city to reallocate money toward a few new capital improvement projects, including work at the Roanoke Centre for Industry and Technology and the E-911 center.
Budget meetings
In April and May, the city will hold a series of budget work sessions and community meetings:
April 10, 7-9 p.m.: Community meeting, Unitarian Universalist Church, 2015 Grandin Road.
April 17, 7-9 p.m.: Community meeting, Pilgrim Baptist Church, 1415 Eighth St. N.W.
April 21, 7 p.m.: City council public hearing, council chambers.
May 5, 9 a.m.: City council budget study session, council chambers.
May 12, 2 p.m.: The council will adopt the FY2026 budget, council chambers.
Turner also proposed a 10% increase to the city’s fire-EMS medic transport fee. She didn’t say how much revenue this would bring in for the city.
To balance the budget, the proposal also includes a $3.5 million reduction in the city’s base budget. Mayor Joe Cobb said all departments can expect cuts as a result of this.
After Monday’s meeting, Cobb said the presentation was “realistic” and “thoughtful.”
Request for a level budget as costs rise for schools
The request for level funding for Roanoke City Public Schools has been the most controversial of the city’s proposed changes.
Since 2011, the school division has received 40% of the city’s tax revenue. When revenues increased, so did the division’s budget.
Turner’s budget proposal includes $106.9 million for the division, the same amount it received last year, despite submitting a request for $113.6 million — the amount that Superintendent Verletta White said the division needs. Virginia state code requires superintendents to submit needs-based budgets.
At the March 3 joint meeting, Turner had asked that the division submit a flat budget.
“Education is one of our top priorities by far,” Turner said at the meeting. “But we also have an entire city to fund.” Education is the biggest portion of the city’s budget, accounting for around 30%.
The request for a flat budget was not meant to be “punitive,” she said.
After the March 3 meeting, Kathleen Jackson, the school division’s chief financial officer, sent a memo to White with her reactions to the presentation.
“I would respectfully submit that whether or not something is intended to be punitive has no bearing on whether its impact is, indeed, punitive,” Jackson wrote.
The school division is now looking at a total of almost $9 million less than what it expected to receive because of additional cuts from state and federal funding sources.
“We’re not asking the schools to do anything that we’re not also asking our departments to do. We have to make adjustments,” Cobb said in an interview earlier this month.
This level budget proposal comes at a time when operating costs are still increasing, according to the division.
“Now, the needs of students that, in many cases, were exacerbated by the pandemic, have not gone away,” Jackson wrote in her memo to White.
Where will cuts within the school division fall?
Jackson said in an interview that the division will need to look at some changes if the city only grants a level budget.
The division might decide to eliminate the positions of 13 elementary school Spanish teachers. The division needs to add English language learner teachers to comply with new state regulations, so the Spanish teachers could potentially be shifted to those positions, Jackson said.
In this case, she said other options for foreign language education would need to be considered, like virtual learning.
Jackson said the division is also looking at reducing the transportation that the division offers. She said the division has had to rely on alternative vendors for different student needs, and she’d like to see more reliance on the buses and less on individualized transportation.
“If something is written into a student’s Individualized Education Plan that is required, then, of course we have to abide by that,” she said.
The division is also considering changes to the employee health insurance plan. Jackson said it could save almost $1 million if it increases deductibles on its health reimbursement plan.
“Obviously, it’s not something we want to do. … But we have to look in all corners to try to meet our budget.”
Seven student support specialist positions also might be cut soon. These positions, which were intended to provide help for students who missed a lot of school after the pandemic, were paid for with pandemic relief funding, which has ended.
Jackson said the division does not expect layoffs, but if additional positions need to be cut, RCPS would opt to not fill existing vacancies.
“I feel like that would be enough, just given the number of retirements that happen every year, or people moving away or what have you,” she said. “That could end up meaning that class sizes get a little bigger if we have that, but at least we wouldn’t have to lay off people who are currently employed, right?”
PTA groups advocate for full funding
Nine people spoke on behalf of the school division to advocate for full funding during the March 17 city council meeting.
Among those speakers was Emily Casey, who sits on the Council of PTAs.
“If city spending is outpacing revenues, that’s something the city needs to solve without making schools the problem,” Casey said.
After the hearing, Casey said her biggest concerns are not being able to fill vacancies and have adequate staff in RCPS schools.
“How are the schools supposed to adequately budget when their amount keeps changing?” she said.
Jessica Blandy, president of the Roanoke City Council of PTAs/PTSAs, said during the meeting that while it’s her understanding that these budget conversations are temporary, she worries that it sets a precedent.
She also noted that Turner seemed to use past RCPS infrastructure projects as a reason for the city’s budget challenges.
A slide in Turner’s March 3 presentation cited “significant support” to the school division between 2008-2022 with the construction of two high schools, one elementary school and other capital needs.
“There’s a lot of blame shifting, is how I feel,” Blandy said.
“Our schools cannot fall behind,” she said at the hearing. “Inequitable funding with our sister divisions means we are failing to invest in many of our children.”
