The Mathews County School Board officially adopted its 2023-2024 budget Tuesday night, but the decision did not come about easily and it wasn’t unanimous.

At the start of the meeting in the Mathews High School media center, school board member Dr. Marianne Gibbs motioned to take adoption of the budget off that night’s agenda and move it to the board’s March 21 meeting.

She cited several reasons for the delay, including the fact that the General Assembly is set to adjourn in a couple days and more accurate state budget figures will be available after that. The extra month would also give the school board more time to do “due diligence,” as well as her concerns over a joint budget work session with county supervisors earlier this month that she called “fruitless.”

School board member Bobby Dobson seconded Gibbs’s motion to amend the agenda and move the budget decision until March, but that eventually failed by a 2-3 vote. Later in the meeting, the budget was adopted by the same...