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Nelson County leaders and school officials outline FY25 needs as state funding drops
Summary
At a joint April 18 meeting, Nelson County supervisors and the School Board reviewed the schools' FY25 budget request — including a $1.8 million gap tied to Local Composite Index changes — and discussed staffing, special education, transportation and long-term debt implications.
Ernie Q. Reed, Central District Supervisor and vice chair of the Nelson County Board of Supervisors, and George Cheape, chair of the Nelson County School Board, convened a joint meeting on April 18 to review the school division’s FY25 budget and discuss shared long-term priorities.
Dr. Amanda Hester, Superintendent of Nelson County Public Schools, presented the school budget and told both boards that personnel accounts for about 80% of the division’s costs and that a 3% salary increase for all staff was included in the request. She said the division faces a roughly $1.8 million gap between the School Board’s FY25 request ($20,330,981) and the state-calculated local share, and that the Local Composite Index (LCI) change reduced projected state revenue by about $1.1 million.
"A budget is a financial representation of what is valued," Dr. Hester said, stressing the division’s priorities of safety, K–12 literacy, social and emotional supports, and workforce readiness. She added that the division is proposing targeted additions: an elementary teacher to cover…
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