Washington County board approves FY26 budget carryover, adds principal salary step, adopts focus goals and emergency guides

The Washington County Public Schools board approved a slate of administrative and fiscal items Thursday, including a revised FY26 budget carryover, a salary-scale amendment for building administrators, adoption of the division's nine focus goals for 2025-26 and emergency response guides for all facilities.

Miss Caldell, a finance staff member, presented the revised budget and carryover request, saying the action reconciles projected beginning balances for several funds the division submitted in February. She told the board the administration was requesting a carryover of $1,964,001.76 in obligated and encumbered funds related to Medicaid and per-pupil allocations.

"This is the annual, where we adjust the beginning balances for fund 314 ... and we're requesting the carry over, of that for it's a third year of our all in," Miss Caldell said. The board moved and seconded the measure and approved the final FY26 revision and supplemental carryover.

Superintendent Dr. Perrigan asked the board to approve a salary-scale amendment that adds an additional step for elementary and some middle-school administrative scales. He said the change is intended to align elementary principal and middle-school CTE principal scales with other administrative scales. The amendment corrects a step error for the new dean-of-students classification and would add a seventh step now and an eighth step in the 2026-27 scale.

Dr. Perrigan said the change will affect three or four employees and will increase pay by a few thousand dollars for those positions; he told members the division can absorb the cost in existing appropriations. The motion to approve the salary-scale amendment passed.

The board also approved nine division —focus goals— that leadership recommended after a retreat and earlier meetings. Administration noted that several state-level policy changes under discussion could require the division to revise exam- and test-related procedures (administration flagged that recent state guidance would require that students' Standards of Learning test scores count for at least 10% of course grades and that some exams be scheduled in the final two weeks of school).

Dr. Wallace presented emergency response guides that were standardized across the division—covering 16 facilities—and said an intern, Lindsay Williams, helped convert the guides into a single format. Wallace told the board the guides will be shared with first responders per state timelines but would not be posted publicly; the board approved the guides.

Other approved items included the board—s appointment of a delegate and alternate to the Virginia School Boards Association and the routine consent agenda. Several members praised convocation and the start of the school year during board updates.

The board took each item by motion and voice vote; where recorded, staff said the fiscal impacts were small and manageable within existing appropriations. The administration said it will report back on any policy changes required by new state rules and will finalize implementation details for the salary-scale changes and the budget carryover.