On Tuesday, the Roanoke City Public Schools board will approve its budget for the 2026 fiscal year, while likely still not knowing for sure what will come of the schools’ fund balance, school board Chair Eli Jamison said on a phone call Thursday afternoon.
The budget totals $275 million, said Claire Mitzel, director of communications with RCPS, which the city council approved on May 12.
In allocating a level budget to the schools, the city appropriated $106.9 million of its tax revenue to the division, upending years of policy that stated 40% of the city’s tax revenue should go to the schools —- an action that is described as “unfortunate” in the RCPS budget summary.
Emails exchanged between City Manager Valmarie Turner and Superintendent Verletta White made it clear that the city plans to regain control of the schools’ $61.5 million unspent fund balance. The city is allowed to do this via state code, but doing so would break the status quo in Roanoke where, historically, the division held onto its fund balance. The division had planned to use this fund balance to make up for unfunded needs not met by the city’s level funding appropriation.
It’s not clear at this time how much, if any, of the fund balance will be reappropriated back to the schools, as conversations continue between the school division and city officials. Officials from both sides will discuss long-term funding plans in a closed door meeting Tuesday before the school board meeting.
“There’s been no real change in the fund balance approach that we’re aware of,” Jamison said.
The budget breakdown states that a little over $12 million is required from the unassigned fund balance, and includes this amount in the total.
The school board meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the RCPS Administration Building at 201 Campbell Avenue in Roanoke. The agenda can be found here, and the meeting will be livestreamed on the RCPS Youtube channel.
