EHS Agenda Preview

Happy Thursday, Board Watchers! 

The wild wild world of local politics never stops, so I’ll be bringing a few updates your way this week. But, since Richmond’s Education & Human Services (EHS) committee has scheduled an emergency meeting for today, Thursday March 2nd, I figured I’d rush to put out a quick Agenda Preview.

These are joint meetings with City Council members (Committee Chair Stephanie Lynch, Vice Chair Cynthia Newbille, and Andreas Addison), and usually feature updates from Eva Colen, Manager of the Office of Children and Families, Superintendent Kamras, and others. Today we’ll hear from RPS Chief Operating Officer Dana Fox and School Board Vice Chair, Cheryl Burke. Here’s what’s on the agenda: 

  • Fiscal Mapping

  • School Construction

  • RPS’ FY2024 Budget

Council Chambers, February 27th

Fiscal Mapping

First up on the agenda is a discussion about Fiscal Mapping. City Council introduced this idea in January, and further explained their vision last month.

Basically, they want to make sure that the City is funding all of the needs of Richmond families, and hope that reviewing where taxpayer dollars are invested now will show them where there are gaps or redundancies in city services.

The School Board continues to respond to this idea as though City Council is trying to catch RPS in wasteful spending of some sort. This is likely a reflection of the overall lack of trust and cooperation between these bodies, spurred on by unhelpful “finger pointing” in the media and unsubstantiated claims of cronyism from the dais. 

6th District Rep Harris-Muhammed even suggested that RPS’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) prohibits the Board’s participation in this City collaboration. However, our 5-page MOU - essentially a “corrective action plan” to get all of our schools accredited and improve poor governance practices - makes no such reference. Either she is genuinely confused, or she’s hiding behind a higher (State) authority to justify her obstinance.

She’s not the only one. Much of our Board appears unwilling to participate in this exercise, even though it’s designed to benefit Richmond families, and they have no money to fund this sort of review themselves.

I remain hopeful that the Board will sign onto this as a no-brainer way to support the kids both inside and outside of their school buildings.

School Construction

Next up is a discussion on the Schools Capital Improvements, which I’m told includes (but is not limited to) an update on the costs and timelines for reconstructing Fox Elementary and building a new George Wythe.

Wythe renderings shared at last night’s meeting. Thanks to Ms. Tisha “Wythe Can’t Wait” Erby for sharing!

We should learn more about the City’s debt capacity, how the Meals Tax “works” to fund school construction, and when the City will make funds available for each of the planned construction projects: Wythe, Fox, a new Woodville, and renovating the Altria building to house Richmond’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs.

There’s a lot of backstory here - including a year’s-long grudge match over a controversial Schools Build Schools initiative (and, again, that inflammatory rhetoric about someone at the City lining their pockets and offering construction money as kickbacks to campaign donors.) I covered all of that in this post.

The fear here is that Wythe and Fox use up all $200M of anticipated Capital Improvement (CIP) funds, and leave no money leftover for the Woodville project. The City has also expanded the Wythe project to include sewage work on site before construction can begin, which the City hasn’t budgeted for, and is apparently expecting RPS to pay for with that same $200M CIP allotment. At present, this is all the CIP money RPS is expected to receive through FY2026. 

The City has been reluctant to offer (or even discuss) dipping into their extensive reserves (pg 59) to provide a separate, one-time CIP payment to close funding gaps for these construction projects. Instead, multiple sources confirm that RPS will likely be encouraged to surplus (sell) vacant properties - perhaps including not-so-vacant properties like Clark Springs - to increase revenue. (RPS’ Vacant Property Committee recently valued this property at $5.5M.)

The City’s recently-released financial report indicating large sums of unassigned CIP funds, as well as over $100M in unassigned general funds.

I’ll offer more extensive analysis after the meeting - but do want to note how the City’s discussion of RPS’ limited CIP funds has shifted over the last few weeks. The story at first was “there’s plenty of money” - then it was “the School Board will have to choose which projects to prioritize” - and now it’s “there isn’t enough money” and “focus on the shovel-ready projects.” (Paraphrased)

As a reminder: Woodville is not “shovel-ready” because the RPS Board shut down their conversation about Woodville design specifications back in March of 2022. They asked then-Chairwoman Harris-Muhammed to add this discussion to a later meeting’s agenda, which she did not appear to do. You can watch that conversation unfold over on RPS Replay:

RPS’s FY2024 Budget

I basically expect this to be a “are you [expletive] kidding me?” conversation. City Council was clear in January that their revenues don’t support RPS’ growing asks, and per Jonathan Young’s comments at Board meetings - that sentiment hasn’t changed.

I hope that - as this tension between “what RPS needs” and “what the City will fund” continues - we’ll remember important details like… the State continues to mandate pay raises and minimum staffing requirements, funds ⅓ of it, and then leaves it to localities to figure out how to pay the rest. That is a huge burden that has grown rapidly in the Covid years.

I hope all our elected officials recognize the State’s role in staging this City V RPS budget showdown, and rise above the urge to engage in petty politics because:

  • There is no reason for the City to suggest that RPS is being greedy; and

  • There is no reason for the Board to suggest the City is being stingy.

The numbers are the numbers, and they reflect the kid’s needs. It’s Council and the Board’s job to work together to meet them.

Update: the RPS Board was well represented by Vice-Chair Cheryl Burke today. She sounds much more optimistic about participating in the Fiscal Mapping (which has been cleverly rebranded as a “Children’s Budget”) , and Council overall extended multiple offers to support RPS either with labor (using the City’s Grants team to apply for more funding), or finding other money to cover the cost of their sewage work at the Wythe site. You can read all that here:

Becca DuVal