The Roanoke City Council will likely vote shortly after New Year’s on a new school funding policy, continuing an effort by the city to rein in the schools’ spending as it grapples with its own shortfalls.
The ongoing changes — this would be the third in two years — have strained the relationship between the division and the city.
According to the most recent draft of the proposed policy, obtained through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, the city would fund Roanoke City Public Schools annually starting at a baseline of what the division received the year before. Then, the schools would either receive 34% of the city’s excess revenue, or, if the city comes up short on revenue for the year, the schools would return 34% of that shortfall. The next year, the division’s new baseline funding would be equal to its final allocation from the previous year.
The proposed policy also states that the division must return to the city any money that it doesn’t spend in a given fiscal year. RCPS could then ask the city council to reappropriate those funds to the division.
Because the school division’s final annual appropriation would depend in part on how well the city predicts its revenues, it’s unclear whether the division would lose funding next year under the proposed policy compared to what it received this year.
These discussions were first brought up in public meetings in May, when City Manager Valmarie Turner proposed a flat budget for the school division and demanded that the division return its $61.5 million surplus fund balance to the city. Turner, who started her role with the city in January, has focused heavily on balancing the city’s budget throughout her first year.
The city’s communications staff did not respond to two requests for an interview with Turner to answer questions about school funding. Mayor Joe Cobb said last week that he expects a vote on the new funding policy in January, but has declined to speak on the record about the policy issues.
In order to balance the city’s budget this year, the city council approved across-the-board cuts, plus a 1.5% increase in the meals tax and flat funding for the school division — meaning it received the same allocation as the year before: $106.9 million.
Starting in 2011, the city allocated 40% of its actual revenue to its schools each year, meaning RCPS revenue grew as city revenues did. The division also historically held onto its excess funds at the end of the year. In 2024, the city council voted to change the formula to 40% of budgeted tax revenue, marking the first of multiple changes to a funding formula that had been in place for more than a decade.
In the past six months, the policy was changed again to say that the schools would receive up to 40% of budgeted tax revenue. This year, city funding did not increase from the previous allocation.
During spring budget talks, Cobb had said that the city’s allocation to its schools, which is higher than what is required by the state, wasn’t sustainable, especially during tight budget times. In late April, Turner wrote in a tense letter to Superintendent Verletta White that she had “deep concerns” about school funding.
Since that time, a task force composed of Cobb, Turner, White, finance representatives from the city, school board Chair Franny Apel, RCPS Chief Financial Officer Kathleen Jackson and members of the school board has been discussing the future of the funding policy and the surplus funds.
School officials: Roanoke division has special funding needs
Roanoke historically allocates to its schools more than is required by the Virginia Department of Education’s Standards of Quality, or SOQs. In fiscal year 2024, Roanoke was required to provide $37.5 million; it allocated $82.2 million.
This fall, the city contracted with a consulting firm, PFM, to conduct an analysis of the city’s finances and a forecast for the future. Under the assumption that the city would continue its 40% school funding policy, the report projected that the city would fall below its fund balance target as early as the 2027 fiscal year, with reserves fully depleted and expenditures outpacing revenues.
The report found that Roanoke contributes more to its schools, in comparison to peer localities, which the report identified as Newport News, Hampton, Roanoke County, Portsmouth and Lynchburg. The average contribution from the peer localities was almost 30 percentage points lower than Roanoke’s, the report said.
RCPS leaders have cautioned against comparing Roanoke to other localities in the state, and say Roanoke has more English learners and students with disabilities, who require more staffing positions, than other divisions.
According to 2025 data from the Virginia Department of Education’s School Quality Profiles, the percentage of students who are English learners in Roanoke, 18%, is more than twice the next highest among seven other school divisions in the region. Roanoke’s percentage of students with disabilities is in line with those other divisions, the VDOE data show.
The percentage of English learner students within Roanoke schools has grown from about 8% to 16% of total enrollment over the last decade, according to a PFM presentation.
The PFM report also found that the number of students requiring special education services increased by about 44 per year over the last decade.
School division expenditures have risen by over 5% each year, with the cost per student rising by 6.5% each year from fiscal year 2019 to fiscal year 2025, the report states.
School officials also argue that RCPS ends up paying a portion of its allocation back to the city each year. The fiscal year 2026 RCPS budget shows the division will pay $1.5 million back to the city for its school resource officers and almost $12 million for debt service for school projects on buildings that the city owns, along with more than $4 million in other services.
Claire Mitzel, director of communications and public relations, said it is unusual for school divisions to pay these costs, especially for SROs.
RCPS began paying 100%, rather than 50%, of its debt service back to the city during fiscal year 2012, Mitzel said. The division also began paying salary and benefit costs for its SROs at least 10 years ago.
The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, which conducts policy analysis and oversight of state agencies for the General Assembly, stated in a study on school funding that the SOQ total funding required is “well below actual school division expenditures.”
According to the JLARC report, the requirements are low because they underestimate staffing needs and the formula still uses Great Recession-era cost reduction measures.
“I shudder to think what our schools would be like if we did the bare minimum of, quote, unquote, adequate,” Jackson said in a recent interview.
This year, RCPS used $10 million of its fund balance to avoid cuts that had been on the table. The only cuts made, Jackson said, were to the elementary Spanish program, which was more a staffing issue than a budgetary one, she said. This year, Roanoke was required by the state to add an additional 40 EL teachers, which the division did by moving Spanish teachers over to those positions.
Next year, if the division must return its unspent fund balance to the city, it will not have the option to use that money to make up for a funding deficit, Jackson said.
“You can’t have continuing costs and efforts being paid out of money you have in your savings account, because once it’s gone, it’s gone,” Jackson said.
Division seeks $8.3 million for high school expansions
Rebekah Murphy, vice president of communications for the Roanoke City Central Council PTA, said she feels a break in communication between the city and the schools. She said she thinks the division is being as transparent as it can be.
“It should be like, we’re all on the same team. What’s good for the schools is good for the city,” she said. “And there has become a divide.”
She said that the PFM report suggested a “narrative that the schools receive too much funding,” and that how tight the RCPS budget already is gets overlooked. She worries about overcrowding and future opportunities for her son, who is enrolled in a city elementary school.
Overcrowding at the city’s high schools has been top of mind for school officials during these budget conversations. Both city high schools, Patrick Henry and William Fleming, are over their capacity of about 1,650 students, and are closer to 2,000 students each, Jackson said.
The division has a plan for a short-term fix, with portable classrooms that would be positioned at each school. Jackson said the modular units at both locations would add 36 classrooms, with two classrooms in each module.
The school division has asked the city to reappropriate $8.3 million for it to use on the learning cottages. Cobb said the city is reviewing the request, and “if action is required, we will add it to an upcoming agenda.”
The city earmarks $5 million in debt capacity for RCPS capital projects each year, which is unchanged in the proposed draft policy.
“It will take time to get permitting, to prepare the land where these facilities might go, to get them ordered and set up. … So we’re already kind of behind the eight ball to get that done if we want them in place and usable before the start of the next school year,” Jackson said.