The Martinsville City Council and Martinsville City School Board heard the proposed fiscal year (FY) 2025-2026 expense budget of $28,929,625 and the proposed $28,093,421 revenue budget at a Monday, April 7 joint meeting.
Schools Superintendent Dr. Zebedee Talley, Jr. said there is a variance of $836,204 between the two budgets.
“That’s again, after looking at everything we anticipated that’s coming in,” he said.
Talley said the division is anticipating receiving $22,195,938 in state entitlements, $5,542,637 in local funds, and $354,846 in grants and other funds.
The local funding is $5,542,637 with a Required Local Effort (RLE) and Required Local Match (RLM) of $650,000.
“So, our new request looking at what we requested from the last year is $186,204. That’s our net from last year; what was appropriated last year. This should hopefully cover our local match and entitles us to get the state funds that we need. Those of you that have done this budget before know that without that local match, we don’t get funds. The state subtracts from what we actually need,” Talley said.
The expense budget increased by $879,352 from the previous year.
Within the budget, $20,522,182 will be used for the instruction line item, an increase of $412,449 from the previous year, and $1.6 million is for instructional technology.
Direct administration will have an expenditure of approximately $1.4 million and attendance and health will have $670,000. These line items have increases of $21,373 and $32,904 respectively.
Approximately $1,370,000 is earmarked for the Transportation category and Maintenance has a proposed expenditure of $3,404,799. Transportation has an increase of $42,299 and maintenance has an increase of $145,205.
The projected enrollment for the upcoming year is 1,865, with 1,675 students in K-12, 110 children in preschool, and 80 students in adult education.
Talley said the General Assembly passed a three percent raise and step for school employees, which totals $636,172.
“For those of you that have been on council and served before know that they don’t always fund what they ask us to do and call those unfunded mandates. So, the General Assembly is not going to pay for everyone to get a three percent raise, and you already know that. The budgeted requests are around $570,000,” Talley said.
Of the initial division-level and school-level requests totaling $902,422, the budget requests were narrowed down to $570,200.
Talley said the approved requests include a reading specialist for Albert Harris Elementary School and contract adjustments for Martinsville Middle School, and two special education teachers at Martinsville High School.
“There are divisions who have, and you can Google it, removed their special ed students from educating. We refuse to do it, never want to do it, because if you have a special needs child or somebody in your family has special needs, you understand it is important that they have an education too, and we will never have the heart to disband our special needs program because our students are our students, regardless,” he said.
Tally said the other approved requests were for technology software, HR software inflation, pupil personnel professional development, a board certified behavioral analyst, a social worker, and an English Language teacher.
“We basically cut most of what was asked for in half,” he said.
The division’s mission statement is to create a safe and supportive learning environment that engages students in individualized learning experiences. To achieve the mission statement, Talley said there are values that are central to any organization that’s going to be effective including integrity and ethical behavior and academic excellence.
“As you know, up to 2015 none of our schools were accredited. Since 2015, all of them have been, so we don’t just talk about it. We do what we say because the education our young people get is vital to anything that’s going to happen to be successful,” he said.
Diversity, equity and inclusion; respect, compassion, and positive relationships; family and community engagement, and service to others are other values of the division. Talley said the division has three annual goals with the first having all schools distinguished as measured by the Virginia Performance Framework by spring 2026.
“Safe and Supportive Schools – it’s very important that we reduce discipline by 10 percent every year. Family Engagement – we actually monitor and count how many events we have and how many parents come from our community because since 2015 we have an open school and an open environment,” he said.
In other matters, the council:
*Heard an update FY25-26 city budget presentation from City Manager Aretha Ferrell-Benavides.
*Approved the real estate tax exemption on the first reading.
