After much discussion Fairfax County Public schools has approved a budget for 2017. The budget

includes salary increases of about 40 million dollars for teachers and 10 million dollars to reduce the size

of classes in elementary schools. There is also 2.2 million dollars to replace some of FCPS old busses. It’s

a relief to hear that there will be no program cuts.

A lot of hard work went into developing the budget for the 2016-2017 school year. FCPS organized a

Budget Task Force that looked at ways to accommodate for all the neeeds of Fairfax County schools.

They looked at larger class sizes getting rid of programs like the Advanced Academic centers, foreign

language immersion, and some sports and music programs anything to save money.

Looking forward, the decline in population in the 2016 school year. They also saved 19.1 million dollars

because of the amount of retirees that have left FCPS. They also fixed substitute pay rates by getting rid

of the increase substitute pay for retired teachers.