Call for Independent Audit of FCPS
Last week, an important report on public education funding in Virginia was released by the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC).
The report finds that Virginia’s formula for determining overall state and local costs for K-12 education yields lower estimates than what is actually spent by school districts. The vast majority of the additional funding for school districts comes from local governments.
Undoubtedly, this needs to be fixed. We need credible and reliable methods for public education cost estimating.
However, the report’s findings also reveal that spending more money does not necessarily translate into better education outcomes.
Under this Fairfax County School Board, the budget increased by hundreds of millions of dollars to $3.29 billion for the 2022–2023 school year, despite SAT scores falling an average of 27 points, deteriorating reading and math achievement, and an estimated 10K fewer students. The Board of Supervisors approved all of the FCPS's requests, including the extra $222 million dollars for the 2023–2024 school year, without question.
As your At-Large School Board member, I will work with the Youngkin and FCPS school administrations to make sure your tax dollars are responsibly spent and positioned to the classroom, safety and security, and well-being of students and not spent on a growing bureaucracy. On the first day, I will call for an independent audit of the FCPS budget and programs.
