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Lunenburg County Public Schools wants to increase this current year’s budget, adding in a number of grants they’ve received and county funds set aside for construction. That’ll be up for a public hearing and a potential vote during this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, set for Thursday, March 13. 

All combined, the grants and transfers would increase the school district’s budget from $27.562 million to $32.051 million. Each needs to be approved by supervisors before being allocated to the district’s budget, with a public hearing held beforehand. 

Some of the changes are just paperwork. For example, back before the 2024 budget cycle, Lunenburg was allocated a total of $881,070 by the state to help fund the governor’s “All-In” tutoring initiative. That program is designed to help students recover from learning loss due to the pandemic. It focuses on providing high-intensity tutoring for students in grades 3-8, particularly in math and English, to accelerate their learning and help them catch up to grade level standards. We’ve covered Lunenburg’s process in those and other areas over the last year. Now that $881,070 was given to Lunenburg to cover the program in Fiscal Year 2024, 2025 and 2026. It just has to be transferred over to the school district’s account each time as funding is needed. And in this case, the district is asking for a total of $584,629.72 to be transferred over. 

Lunenburg County sets aside construction funds

Lunenburg also set aside school construction money received from the state in the amount of $1.439 million. Just like the “All-In” tutoring funds, anytime these are used for renovations or repairs, they have to be transferred over from the county pockets to the school district. This time around, out of that $1.439 million, the district is asking for $313,715. This is to help cover the cost of renovations of the Central High School bathrooms, which started near the end of December and has been going on since. Currently, school district officials expect it to be complete this month. 

The vote on this will take place, as mentioned, during Thursday’s county meeting. That begins at 6 p.m. in the second floor courtroom in the Lunenburg courthouse complex.