Roanoke’s school district says it may need to cut as many as 50 mostly vacant positions if city funding remains at last year’s level.

Jobs held by 13 elementary school Spanish teachers could be eliminated if Roanoke adjusts its funding formula with the school district, according to a presentation Monday from Superintendent Verletta White to Roanoke City Council.

“These are just some of the practical realities we must face if we do not receive the funding necessary to meet our needs,” White said. 

The city faces millions in potential spending cuts after City Manager Valmarie Turner last month outlined a constrained budget on the horizon. She said she asked the school district to present a budget at last year’s level of city support.

Roanoke could consider raising its meals tax rate, from 5.5 to 6.5 percent, to help pay for a backlog of deferred maintenance, a financial advisor told Council members Monday. If adopted, that could bring in about $4 million annually that could go toward repairing elevators, boilers and other critical building needs, according to David Rose of Davenport & Co. 

“This appears to us to be the one that has the most justification,” Rose said of potential options. “As Churchill would say, it’s the best of the worst.”

City and school officials met jointly Monday for the first time since it emerged that Roanoke needs to rein in spending and raise more revenue.

If City Council does not approve nearly $7 million in expected increases for the schools, White said the district would need to cut $9 million on a roughly $270 million budget. Regardless of the city’s funding decisions, the district still needs to cut about $2 million, in part because of new state requirements, district officials say.

New state rules changed how many English learner teachers that school districts must have. For Roanoke, that translates to an increase from 49 to 88 teachers, according to Kathleen Jackson, the district’s chief financial officer. That will cost the district about $3.5 million annually.

That’s one of the reasons why the district is targeting the elementary school Spanish program; the idea is those teachers could help fill the English language learner spots.

“The program as we know it will no longer exist,” White said, in speaking of the hypothetical cut. “We would need to explore technology-based alternatives instead.”

All 50 positions under consideration are either vacant currently or could be repurposed into other roles and should not be considered layoffs, according to Claire Mitzel, a school district spokesperson. Among those positions, the district is exploring whether to cut seven grant-funded student support specialist jobs, as well as 28 to 30 “additional positions” that would need to be taken off the rolls.

One elementary school Spanish teacher said they were informed last week during a brief virtual call about the proposal to do away with the program and transfer employees into becoming English learner teachers.

“Nobody had a chance to talk,” said the teacher, who spoke on the condition their name not be used publicly for fear of retaliation. “A lot of people were angry about that.”

The elementary Spanish program has been in place since 2008. The teacher said employees would need to pass a special test to become an English learner teacher. “It is very difficult to get,” the person said.

Mitzel said no final decision has been made. She said staff met with principals and teachers “to proactively make them aware” before the news emerged from Monday’s Council meeting.

Turner said education remains a priority but that the city has other pressing needs. She said Roanoke’s longstanding policy directing 40 percent of local tax dollars to the school district had put the city in a bind.

“The request for schools for level funding, for local school funding, was not intended at all to be punitive,” Turner said. “Compensation on the city side is not fully competitive. Funding for capital replacement is not sufficient, and there are a backlog of projects.”

However, White told reporters Monday she intends to present a “needs-based” budget for the school board’s approval that would include $6.7 million in expected city increases. But if Council insists on level funding, “then we’ll have to make some hard decisions,” White said.

“We have increasing student needs,” she told Council members. “Every bit of that 40 percent is essential.”

Roanoke leaders also discussed Monday how it might finance new school building projects. The district says overcrowding at the high schools warrants building a third high school that could cost north of $150 million. Three new elementary schools, collectively totaling another $150 million, are also a school district priority.

In recent years, the district has used cash and one-time pandemic relief money to create a new career and technical education center at William Fleming High School, renovate the former Roanoke Times building for a new administration headquarters and turn the former admin building into a community welcoming center that is slated to open this summer.

“Some may question why we chose to renovate buildings, but we saw this as a generational opportunity, or what I call legacy works,” White said.

Future building projects, however, may have to rely on the city issuing debt at a time when it’s bumping up against an internal limit of not spending more than 10 percent of the budget on debt. Some Council members appeared skeptical about the need or cost of new buildings.

“My worry is that we’re going to have a white elephant,” Councilman Peter Volosin said of a third high school. “We move a bunch of folks into that new school, and there’s not enough growth and we actually see a decline.”

Chris Perkins, the district’s chief operations officer, said nobody knows the future but that Roanoke is a welcoming city. Demographic projections predict 500 more high school students by 2050.  

“To use a Field of Dreams [reference], ‘If you build it…’” Perkins said.

As for operating expenses, Mayor Joe Cobb said Roanoke’s school funding formula was put into place in 2011 at a time when the city was struggling with low graduation rates.

“The challenges now are a little different than they were in 2011,” Cobb said. 

Last year, Council adjusted the formula so that 40 percent of revenue above what was budgeted would not automatically go to the schools. 

“I know it was contentious at best, at times, related to the surplus,” Cobb said. “That was in part, a reflection of the emerging reality for the city, not a reflection against the schools.”

“This is probably the most clear and most transparent beginning to a conversation like this,” school board chair Eli Jamison replied. “We have tried to have [such a conversation] previously, but, as you mentioned, it didn’t land the same way.”