LYNCHBURG, Va. โ Lynchburg City Schools is facing its next challenge in trying to address a $17.7 million budget deficit.
Discussions over the deficit started earlier in the year when Superintendent Crystal Edwards gave her preliminary fiscal year 2025 budget presentation.
On Tuesday, the school board met to continue those discussions. It was also the first chance they got to see some more details about the potential cuts the district is looking at making.
LCS is building its budget based on Gov. Glenn Youngkinโs recommended biennium budget. Assuming level funding (meaning the school district gets the same amount) from the city, the division is projecting $108.3 million in overall revenue. โStatus quoโ expenditures total $126 million leaving a $17.7 million deficit.
The division is also expecting $2 million in higher utility costs and $4.7 million in additional health insurance costs, plus $1 million less in state revenue from the governorโs proposed budget.
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According to the proposal and the numbers are not finalized, the district is looking at cutting 67 positions from the โdivision levelโ. Cuts also include $3.3 million in CARES Act-funded programs along with $2 million from mental health services.
Martin Day, Vice-Chair of the board, along with other board members are concerned with getting rid of mental health services.
โOne thing we can do that would make the biggest single impact on our studentsโ academic performance is we could solve all the behavior problems but it takes dollars to do that. Thatโs the unfortunate thing weโre looking at here,โ Day said.
Derrick Brown, the Director of Student Services in the district, also cautioned the board about making such a cut.
โIf those funds are not available, weโll have to reduce the amount of services. Weโll be further from our goal of providing mental health services for all our students in all of our schools,โ Brown said.
The administration is working with principals to identify another $5.2 million in โschool-levelโ cuts spread out across all schools.