Some council members said they lacked key CBA data. ACPS presented that data three weeks earlier.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that not all council members indicated they lacked information about the scope of ACPS's collective bargaining agreement. Councilman John Chapman commented after publication that the characterization did not apply to the full council, saying, "Correction: All of a council was not lacking that info". The headline has been changed from "City Council said it lacked key CBA data" to "Some council members said they lacked key CBA data."

A dispute has emerged between some members of Alexandria City Council and Alexandria City Public Schools over whether the council had the information it needed to understand the scope of ACPS's historic first collective bargaining agreement — a question that surfaced inside a broader conversation about whether the city's annual budget process can keep pace with a government increasingly bound by multi-year labor contracts.

At the March 25 budget work session, Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley, who was leading the meeting due to Mayor Alyia Gaskins' absence, raised the possibility of moving to a biannual budget, noting that collective bargaining agreements were locking up larger portions of the city's spending with each passing year.

Budget Director Morgan Routt put a number to it. ACPS staffing, he said, represents about 85% of the school division's total budget. The school division itself represents about 30% of the city's overall budget.

"I do think I love your office's perspective on potential savings in light of collective bargaining to a modification of our process to be more of a biannual process," Bagley said.

Councilman John Chapman said the idea was not new. Former Mayor Justin Wilson, he noted, had raised it before. "I think as we started down the path of looking at various CBAs," Chapman said, "this was one of the things that he said — if we're going to start to lock things up, there's probably less of a need to do kind of a regular annual budget process in the major way that we do it."

Bagley, summarizing the Budget and Fiscal Advisory Committee's memo presented that evening, noted that 71% of the city budget and 88% of the school budget is now tied up in collectively bargained agreements.

It was directly in that context — a council grappling with how much of its discretionary authority was being reduced year by year — that concerns about the ACPS agreement came to the surface.

Councilman Canek Aguirre raised a question about which employees would be covered under the agreement and when.

"We do know how many employees ACPS has," Aguirre said, "but we still don't have a number in terms of how many of them are going to be within the collective bargaining agreement. Maybe the first year of the agreement, it's only teachers. And maybe the second year they're going to bring in the support staff or the custodial staff. We just don't know."

"When we're not being given that information," he added, "it just makes everything so much more difficult."

City Manager Jim Parajon said he shared the concern.

"I honestly cannot tell you without a definitive review of that," Parajon said. "The good news is I will be meeting with the superintendent later this week to hopefully review some of that and be able to provide some clarity to the council."

None of the council members present raised the point that the staffing data had already been presented at the March 4 joint work session or indicated that they had the information.

Councilman Abdel Elnoubi was direct about the frustration.

"I think it's been said, and just to put a fine point on it, we asked our partners on the school board and ACPS to be part of the process," Elnoubi said. "Not to manage the process, not to be part of negotiations, but to be informed and in the loop. So we're not in the position we're in today. Twice. And that was rejected."

Elnoubi added: "We're still trying to find answers at this point where we're about to — we're halfway through our budget process and we found out about the collective bargaining press release."

School Board Chair Michelle Rief responded in a letter published two days after the session, pointing council to two sources she said already contained the answer: the school board's collective bargaining resolution and the ACPS FY 2027 operating budget presentation delivered at the March 4 joint city council and school board work session.

At that March 4 session, Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt walked the council through the staffing breakdown directly.

"We have 1,669 FTEs in our licensed personnel bargaining unit," Kay-Wyatt said. "That's primarily our teachers and other licensed staff. And then we have 860.9 FTEs who are education support professionals — again, bus drivers, school nutrition employees, etc. And then 191 FTEs who are not in a collective bargaining unit."

She then stated plainly: "About 2,500 staff members are covered by our tentative bargaining agreement."

That presentation was made to the city council and the school board together, three weeks before the March 25 exchange.

ACPS presentation from the work session laying out which staff falls under the new CBA. (ACPS)

The joint work session had been scheduled before the agreement was announced. Parajon acknowledged at the session that the city had received details of the tentative agreement that day.

Parajon described the contrast with how the city handled collective bargaining with DASH, its transit service. In that process, he said, "every step of the negotiation process, I was aware of the potential choices that were being made and being considered so that we could analyze the potential impact on the fiscal health of the entire city."

He said a similar arrangement had been sought with ACPS but was rejected.

"Council first directed me to request opportunity to be part of the bargaining," Parajon said. "We followed that up with a written formal request that was denied by ACPS."

ACPS has not publicly responded to that characterization. The school board's collective bargaining resolution, adopted unanimously in March 2024, does not include a provision for the city to participate in or observe negotiations.

The question of what was known and when carries direct budget consequences. ACPS is asking council to increase its appropriation by $5.6 million above what Parajon proposed — the amount the school board says is needed to honor the tentative agreement with its two unions. Without it, the school board has outlined cuts that include 23 classroom teachers, the middle school athletic program and social worker and psychologist positions.

Council's add/delete deadline — the last opportunity for members to propose changes to Parajon's budget — is April 9. Final adoption is set for April 29.