The Gloucester County School Board adopted its budget for fiscal year 2026 in the amount of $81.9 million Tuesday night, following its previous budget adoption of $83.5 million in March. The school board had to hold an additional budget discussion and adoption after the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors finalized its budget on April 30.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Anthony Vladu requested an additional $2 million from supervisors, which was originally projected to provide the district with the same funding amount allocated to the division the year before. However, the board of supervisors voted to allocate an additional $450,000 to the Community Eligibility Provision program/food services. The rest of the funding requests were denied.
Division staff reworked the budget to reprioritize funding requests for FY26. Staff came up with $3.1 million in savings, mostly through attrition of positions.
“When you depend on attrition so much,” said school board member Troy Andersen, “You’re saving dollars, which is a direct cost, but there’s still a lot of indirect costs that comes with attrition.” He said that this could lead to staff doing more work with no additional pay and the division suffering from gaps in skill sets and knowledge.
“This cannot be a long-term strategy,” agreed Vladu. “This is an adjustment based on enrollment and we hope that enrollment can stabilize because that will solve all of our issues.”
He said that staff worked with individual schools to make these attrition decisions.
Funds saved ($3.1 million) and received from the state ($1.17 million) will be invested in a 4.5 percent raise for all employees to include a cost-of-living adjustment ($1.2 million), health care increase ($3.7 million), two school-based behavior specialists ($153,130), Centers of Excellence program at Gloucester High School ($53,825), a part-time gifted teacher position ($47,611), New Horizons increase ($108,274), Middle Peninsula Regional Special Education Program increase ($104,764) and starting bus driver salaries at $20 per hour ($30,958).
Installing signage at Page Middle, Botetourt Elementary and Petsworth Elementary schools ($80,000) was also proposed, but the school board voted against including that item due to uncertainty surrounding attrition savings.
CEP
The school board also grappled with the practicality of keeping the Community Eligibility Provision program implemented districtwide. Through it, all students receive free meals at school, regardless of need.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, all students received free meals from school. Districts can now continue to provide free meals to all students if at least 40 percent of students would qualify for free or reduced-priced lunch, a parameter that all Gloucester County Public Schools fall within. The division is reimbursed for the cost of some of these meals through the USDA.
The board of supervisors voted to allocate $450,000 to the CEP program/food service support from the unassigned fund balance as a one-time expenditure, expecting the district to go back to the paid model that was the norm before the pandemic after the next fiscal year. Families will still be able to apply for free and reduced-priced lunches for their students.
However, GCPS may have to return to the paid model sooner rather than later as Central Food Service’s fund balance continues to diminish and the government reimbursement rate for meals falls again.
The department’s reserves are used to repair and replace equipment, according to Deputy Superintendent Bryan Hartley. This becomes a problem when the fund balance is too low and equipment needs arise.
“When we were fully reimbursed for meals for a couple of years, we had a considerable fund balance that we actually had to spend down because we had too much money in that account, not to oversimplify it,” said Hartley. “But in the last couple years we still had a substantial fund balance. So, to take on CEP, we knew that there would have to be additional funding sources outside once we spent our fund balance down.”
Under the current reimbursement rate, which could change starting in the 2027-2028 school year, the division would need a little over $600,000 per year to keep the program afloat districtwide.
“I don’t know how tenable it is,” said school board chair Leonne Arsenovic about the program, “Because we are just not bringing in the revenue that we used to when you’re selling lunches. We just don’t have that revenue coming in anymore.”
The school board will revisit the CEP issue at a future meeting with the program possibly ending for the entire district as early as next school year.
Recognitions
Michael Seda Jr. and Leslie Jenkins were recognized as Gloucester High School seniors of the month. Seda is an A/B honor roll student and is a four-year cadet in the GHS NJROTC program. He is also a member of the W.E.B. DuBois Honor Society and the GHS track and field team. Seda will attend Old Dominion University in the fall where he will study sports management.
Jenkins is a straight-A student and is enrolled in many advanced classes. She is the president of the Mu Alpha Theta Math Honor Society and the Beta Club and is an officer for the Spanish Club. After graduating from GHS, Jenkins will study engineering at Virginia Tech.
Mike Horrell, a retired teacher, was recognized as community volunteer of the month during the meeting. He has volunteered as a math tutor at Peasley Middle School for several years.
A copy of the book “Little Women” was donated to the GHS media center in honor of Lauren Landry, who served as student advisory council representative for the school board over the past year.