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Updated Aug. 28 at 4 p.m. with a response from ACPS Chief Financial Officer Dominic Turner explaining how the bonus is funded.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Alexandria City School Board on Thursday adopted a revised fiscal 2027 combined funds budget that clears the way for about $2.5 million in one-time bonuses that the division plans to pay to every full-time employee, rather than only to the state-funded positions the bonus was designed around.
The motion, read aloud by Vice Chair Alexander Crider Scioscia, runs to fund totals, transfers and position counts. It sets the revised operating fund budget at $372,187,479 in revenue and expenditures, including a $1.2 million transfer in from the capital improvement program and a $1,627,936 transfer out to the grants and special projects fund to support the Virginia Preschool Initiative. Grants and special projects totals $19,108,133 and school nutrition services $12,634,076. The city appropriation is $286,620,329. The budget funds 2,449.10 full-time equivalent positions in the operating fund, 116.5 in grants and special projects and 121 in school nutrition. It draws $7,457,400 from the general fund balance.
The resolution also grants the acting superintendent authority to make minor changes consistent with the board's intent, and authorizes encumbrances outstanding as of June 30 to carry forward from fiscal 2026.
The resolution does not mention bonuses, which is ordinary — appropriation motions set fund totals rather than itemize what money will buy. The memo explaining the revision does describe the money as bonus payments, and puts the figure at $1.1 million.
Where the $2.5 million came from
The bonus figure entered the public record only when board members asked.
Introducing the item, Chief Financial Officer Dominic Turner gave no presentation, telling the board it had been briefed at an earlier work session. He said the division had expected additional money from the Commonwealth, received about $1.1 million, and that the vote was to appropriate that $1.1 million for staff.
Board member Ashley Simpson Baird asked whether other financial needs had emerged since the school year began. Turner said no, and that declining to fund the compensation would mean returning more than $500,000 to the state. She then asked him to refresh the board on the state's bonus requirement.
"So the state provided us with their 20% share of a bonus for SOQ positions," Turner said, referring to Standards of Quality positions, the state's minimum staffing requirements. "That was roughly $500,000. We had to provide the other $2 million for that. We have decided to pay that out to all positions and not just SOQ, and that is because we employ more than just the minimum standard of quality of positions. So we will be paying out that roughly $2.5 million to all of our full-time employees here in ACPS."
Asked whether the bonus covers employees on the fiscal 2026 payroll or the current one, Turner said it applies to staff currently on the division's roster.
Neither Turner nor the board packet said how much each employee will receive or when the payments will arrive. The revised budget funds 2,686.6 full-time equivalent positions across the three funds, but FTE counts are not headcounts and the bonus goes only to full-time staff.
Turner referred to two different state figures during the discussion — about $1.1 million when he introduced the item and roughly $500,000 as the state's 20% share when he answered Simpson Baird. He later told The Alexandria Brief the two are separate pots of money.
How the bonus is funded
Asked how the figures fit together, Turner told The Alexandria Brief the $1.1 million and the SOQ bonus are separate money.
"The two figures do not relate," he said. "The $1.1 million is separate from the Standards of Quality (SOQ) bonus funding. $500,000 was given for the state share of the SOQ Bonus which is already included in the budget, and $1.1 million is additional state funding we will be receiving above what was originally estimated."
The General Assembly adopted the state budget after the School Board adopted the division's fiscal 2027 budget on June 11, Turner said, so ACPS had been working from an estimate of state funding.
The roughly $2.5 million payout draws on three sources, according to Turner: the $500,000 state SOQ share already in the budget, the $1.1 million in additional state money the board appropriated Thursday, and $900,000 in vacancy savings — money budgeted for positions the division has not filled.
None of that breakdown appears in the board's materials. A memo from budget director Robert Easley, submitted through Turner and Acting Superintendent Grace Taylor, describes the revision only as adding $1.1 million in state revenue and $1.1 million in expenditures for anticipated staff bonus payments, attributing the additional revenue to the Commonwealth's fiscal 2026-2028 adopted budget and an updated Virginia Department of Education allocation. The memo notes that when the board adopted the fiscal 2027 budget in June, it granted the superintendent authority to make necessary minor changes consistent with the board's intent.
Neither the memo nor the resolution mentions the $2.5 million total, the vacancy savings, or the decision to pay all full-time employees rather than only state-funded positions. Those details emerged in response to board members' questions on Thursday and in answers to The Alexandria Brief on Friday.
The fund statements attached to the motion show fiscal 2023 through 2025 actuals, the fiscal 2026 final budget and the revised fiscal 2027 figures, but no column for the fiscal 2027 budget the board adopted June 11 — so the packet does not display what changed.
The division's own account of the meeting does not mention the budget. The ACPS Express summary published Friday lists six items — the Opening of Schools Report, a community donation, the VSBA Media Honor Roll nomination, advisory committee applications, personnel actions and School Board member assignments — and directs readers to BoardDocs for the agenda and documents. The revised budget was the only action item on Thursday's agenda outside the consent calendar.
Two steps, and a timing gap
Thursday's vote is the first of two. The School Board must appropriate the funds to authorize spending them, and the Alexandria City Council, as the division's appropriating body, must appropriate them as well.
Asked how quickly that would happen, Turner said the item would go to Council on its next agenda, and that the division had been told Council action would come in early October at the earliest. The division can pay employees before Council acts, he said, with Council appropriating the funding afterward.
The board adopted the revised budget on a voice vote, with no audible opposition. BoardDocs records all nine members voting yes: Abdulahi Abdalla, Tim Beaty, Kelly Carmichael Booz, Christopher Harris, Donna Kenley, Ryan Reyna, Michelle Rief, Crider Scioscia and Simpson Baird. Rief seconded the motion.
Two closed sessions, no announcements
The board convened its first closed session after public comment, citing Virginia Code § 2.2-3711(A)(29), which covers discussion of the award of a public contract where an open session would harm the division's bargaining position. The stated subject was the relocation of the Chance for Change Academy. Members certified afterward that only exempt matters had been discussed, then moved through the consent calendar and the budget vote. No announcement followed, and no contract award for the academy appeared on the agenda.
At the end of the meeting, the board convened a second closed session under § 2.2-3711(A)(1), the personnel exemption, to discuss prospective candidates for superintendent — their qualifications, experience, references, suitability, potential appointment, compensation, and other terms and conditions of employment. The motion also dispensed with the attendance of the superintendent or her designee under § 22.1-69.
Members certified that session as well. No announcement followed.
Virginia law permits public bodies to discuss the appointment of specific employees, and the award of public contracts, in closed session. School boards across the state routinely use the personnel exemption during superintendent searches.
ACPS has said the search is confidential and that candidates will not be identified publicly. The division's published timeline calls for finalist interviews in September and an announcement in October. Applications closed Aug. 12, the same evening the board voted to end former Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt's tenure seven weeks early and appoint Taylor to lead the division on an acting basis.
Also at the meeting
Acting Superintendent Grace Taylor presented the division's Opening of Schools Report. It puts enrollment at 15,351 students in prekindergarten through 12th grade as of Thursday, with the official count to be taken Sept. 30. The division reported 99% of licensed positions filled and 11 teacher vacancies, and said it welcomed 200 new licensed staff.
The report also summarized results on state Standards of Learning tests released this week: pass rates of 71% in history, 63% in reading, 59% in mathematics and 56% in science, with gains in every content area. It says ACPS was one of 10 divisions the state identified as exemplars for large gains in mathematics.
Board Chair Christopher Harris recognized Jasmine Washington-Price of the ACPS communications office as one of eight inaugural recipients nationwide of the Public Relations Society of America's Emerging Professionals Award.
The consent calendar also carried $240,100 in donations. They include $158,000 from an anonymous donor to support the cell phone pouch program at Alexandria City High School, accepted under a state law requiring the board to apply gifts according to the donor's wishes, which ACPS said includes honoring a request for anonymity. Two donations went toward school meal debt: $41,100 from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, which set and surpassed a $40,000 match challenge, and $20,000 from Patrick and Kim Anderson. The rest were backpacks and school supplies from SageWater, the Jen Walker Team, and Bill Page Toyota with the Kids In Need Foundation. Board member Michelle Rief thanked the donors by name during announcements, including the anonymous one.
The board also postponed the fiscal 2028 budget development calendar to its Sept. 10 meeting, the second delay for the item. Board member Kelly Carmichael Booz pulled it from the consent calendar at the July 9 organizational meeting; the division said the board and budget offices are revisiting the calendar over concerns about timing between staff responses and board work sessions.
Ten people addressed the board during public comment. Half spoke about the walk zone changes and lost bus service, including two parents who spoke in Spanish through an interpreter. The Alexandria Brief reported separately on the transportation comments.
Ryan Belmore
Two speakers addressed the division's finances. David Paladin-Fernandez, speaking for the education association, told the board employees were not meaningfully consulted when their healthcare costs rose by upwards of 50%, and that staff spent the summer dealing with inaccurate contracts. He said the association and ACPS have held preliminary collective bargaining conversations he described as productive, but asked that employees be given a seat as non-voting participants at the add-delete table, where budget additions and reductions are worked out.
Deborah McKeeman told the board its budget constraints are self-inflicted and said she intends to speak about the division's spending at future meetings. She recounted a March joint session at which, she said, a City Council member noted the city had given ACPS 20% of new revenue in each of the past three years with minimal return in student achievement. The Alexandria Brief has not independently verified that exchange.
Others raised kindergarten class size and composition, and staff retention.
The board approved the consent calendar unanimously. Among the items was a resolution placing Ryan Belmore, founder and publisher of The Alexandria Brief, on the Virginia School Boards Association's 2026 Media Honor Roll.
The VSBA program recognizes reporters and outlets for coverage of local schools. Nominations originate with local school boards rather than the association, require a unanimous vote and a resolution signed by every board member, and are not individually vetted by VSBA. Divisions may nominate up to three recipients; ACPS named one, and named The Zebra Press last year. The submission deadline is Sept. 10. The division has invited Belmore to be recognized at the board's Oct. 22 meeting.
Editor's note: Belmore wrote this story. The Alexandria Brief is disclosing this recognition in its coverage of ACPS and the School Board today and will add it to our about page following receipt of the recognition in October.
The Governance Committee met Friday morning by Zoom. The Strategy and Accountability Committee meets Monday at 3 p.m. and the Operational Excellence Committee at 6 p.m., both in the School Board meeting room. Sept. 4 is a student holiday and schools and offices are closed Sept. 7 for Labor Day. The Athletic Hall of Fame Advisory Committee meets Sept. 8 in the Alexandria City High School media center. The board's next regular meeting is Sept. 10.
Ryan Belmore is an Alexandria resident and the founder and publisher of The Alexandria Brief. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas to ryan@alexandriabrief.com.
