CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Budget season has come again for the Albemarle County School Board, and with it, the yearly challenges of paying the rising costs of keeping public schools staffed, organized, and open.
The School Board submitted a $311-million funding request to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors for the 2026-27 school year, which was approved unanimously.
Dr. Kate Acuff, the Jack Jouett District representative on the board, broke down where the money is going to be distributed throughout the division. The total county budget is $724 million, with $218.3 million slated for education.
According to the budget, 86% of those funds are earmarked specifically for personnel, helping to cover salaries, retirement, FICA, and healthcare for the division’s employees.
“Education is a people business,” Acuff told WINA Morning News.
This allocation amounts to an average of $95,000 in investments toward each individual employee, for nearly 2,800 total district employees.
Of course, with how difficult work in education can be, staff retention, particularly for teachers, provides its own set of issues that must be navigated.
“We are unable to pay our teachers their value,” Acuff said.
Teachers in Albemarle County are on annual contracts. In budget season, teachers will get a notification each year if they are on the yearly Reduction in Force list. Due to the size of the division, conservative choices need to be made on who is hired, who is called back, and where they will work in the upcoming school year.
Competition for staff between Charlottesville City and division in Northern Virginia is also taken into account.
Acuff mentioned that this year saw the shortest RIF list in a long time.
“Many of them will be called back,” she assured.
The division also requested funds for a new high school, but the Board of Supervisors did not move forward with that project, requesting more information.
“I think I, and some of my peers on the board, agree with the wisdom of it,” Mike Pruitt, Scottsville District Supervisor, told WINA Morning News, “but it’s also something that, quite frankly, we literally do not have the capacity to afford.”
