School superintendent seeks $33.1 million FY27 budget; supervisors press on bus buys, bonuses and substitute pay

Dr. Cynthia Reasoner, superintendent of Buckingham County Public Schools, on Wednesday presented the school division’s proposed FY27 operating budget of $33,106,985 and asked the Board of Supervisors to provide an additional $383,717 in minimum local effort to meet state funding requirements tied to a revised Local Composite Index.

Reasoner told the joint work session the division based the FY27 proposal on a conservative Average Daily Membership (ADM) of 1,650 after enrollment declined from the FY26 budget assumption of 1,725. She listed accomplishments — multiple schools designated “on track” or “distinguished” by the Virginia Department of Education — and described steps the division took this year to close a state‑revenue shortfall without layoffs, including not filling six teacher vacancies and moving some locally funded positions to federal grants.

The nut of the request, Reasoner said, is that Buckingham’s LCI rose to 0.3569 in December 2025, which increases the locality’s required local match. “If that was not the case, the County would … have to appropriate over $1 million to the…