Middle school after-school programs, the police department and high school crossing guards are among the areas that Fairfax County’s proposed budget intends to cut. At the same time, FCPS seeks additional cash flow from the county to cover their own monetary deficits.
Presented to the county board of supervisors on Feb 18, Fairfax County’s proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year (FY 2026 Advertised Budget Plan) includes budget cuts of $59.8 million and reductions in at least 40 of the county’s agencies.
“The county has been making budget cuts for a few years,” financial technician Sunny Crosby said. “But especially with the federal cuts going on, I think this is going to have a large impact on the community, even while I think it might not a lot at CHS.”
One of the major cuts comes to middle school after-school programs (which have been offered since 2001), a move that, Crosby states, would force students who depend on the service as a safe space after school to look for an alternative. Additionally, cuts related to public safety, including the termination of 47 police officer positions and the reduction of overtime spending for police departments, have drawn criticism from community members.
“I would’ve liked if the county were more transparent about the police cuts,” junior Ishaan Mantrala said. “It is available online, but not a lot of people are going to know about it unless they look it up. If more people knew, then it would improve communication around the debate of whether it’s safe.”
At the high school level, the FY 2026 Advertised Budget Plan would eliminate all crossing guards, including the position at the south entrance to the CHS campus.
“At some high schools with not a lot of traffic, it might be fine, but at schools like Westfield and Chantilly, so many kids rely on the crossing guards for safe crossing,” Mantrala said. “Kids live right across the street. How are they going to safely cross the roads?”
Of the FY 2026 Advertised Budget Plan’s total proposed budget of $5.7 billion, FCPS is slated to receive most of it: $2.9 billion. In fact, the school district currently receives 70.6% of its funding from the county, compared to just 19% from the state.
“The problem is that Virginia does not fund our schools very well,” Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid said during a roundtable discussion with students on April 10. “Every state [that borders Virginia] spends more on student education than we do,”
While the school district is set to receive $4 billion in total funding for FY 2026, Reid shared in the roundtable discussion that the current budget would not be enough to compensate for all the changes FCPS hopes to make next year, including the 7% salary increase for teachers that the Fairfax Education Union and FCPS tentatively agreed on last year.
To support employee compensation, as well as special education and contract rate adjustments, Reid requested a $268 million increase in funding from the county for the next school year. However, the FY 2026 Advertised Budget Plan only includes a $125.34 million increase in funding for the school district, falling over 50% below FCPS’s request.
“The ramifications are we’re not going to pay for the things that we’ve budgeted to have,” Reid said. “We’re hopeful that [Fairfax] County will transfer the full amount we’ve asked them to transfer. ”
According to FCPS, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is set to mark up the school district’s 2026 fiscal year budget on May 6, which will mainly determine the final amount the county transfers toward FCPS’ budget.
The reductions of the FY 2026 Advertised Budget Plan are set to be the second largest in the county’s history, only surpassed by the FY 2010 Advertised Budget Plan’s cuts of nearly $90 million following the Great Recession.
“Under the current administration, funding seems to be tighter, so budgeting will probably be leaner,” Crosby said. “Under future administrations, [funding] might increase, and we might start expanding again. We’ll just have to see what’s going on, and make changes accordingly.”
