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Notes: Virginia schools receiving less funding than expected after state’s accounting error

By ALXnow.com

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🚨 You need to know

An accounting error by the Virginia Department of Education means local schools around Virginia will receive $201 million less in state aid than expected, the Richmond Times-Dispatch first reported.

Additionally, that error hit for $58 million less for the current K-12 year. State officials clarified that the error meant those funds were never received by school divisions.

The error emerged when the state failed to account for funding changes relating to the elimination of the state’s portion of the grocery sales tax. The elimination of the grocery sales tax was part of a broader tax cut package.

State funds accounted for 19.7% of Alexandria City Public School’s (ACPS) operating fund for Fiscal Year 2023’s operating budget — a not insignificant amount, but the majority of ACPS funding comes from the city appropriation — 79.9% of the budget. The state’s error will have a bigger impact on school districts where more of the budget is reliant on the state.

“State revenues are projected to increase mainly in the area of basic aid, sales tax, supplemental lottery per pupil allocation, and at-risk,” the ACPS budget said. “This is slightly offset by decreases in other funding categories.”

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  • This is the staff byline for ALXnow, used by editors and other full-time staff. Launched in October 2019, ALXnow is the place for the latest news, views and things to do around Alexandria, Virginia.