How Fauquier County Public Schools is funded and governed, and what its budget is buying next year.
Who pays for Fauquier's schools, and who decides?
A county-dependent division where the county pays just over half
Fauquier County Public Schools teaches about 10,900 students in 11 elementary schools, four middle schools, three high schools and one alternative school in Virginia's Piedmont. The school board writes a budget but cannot levy a tax. For 2026-27 the adopted budget is $206,427,330 across all funds: $107,650,967 comes from the Fauquier County transfer, about 52 percent, and $79,097,275 from the state, about 38 percent, with the rest federal, local and transfers. How much state money arrives depends heavily on the Local Composite Index, Virginia's measure of how much a locality can afford to pay for its own schools. Fauquier's index fell to 0.5778 for 2026-2028 from 0.6006 for 2024-2026, which shifts a little more of the cost onto the state. The budget year runs from a School Board planning summit in October, through the superintendent's proposal in February and the county's adoption at the end of March, to the School Board's own adoption in April.
Five members, one per magisterial district
The board has five members, each elected for a four-year term by voters in one of the county's five magisterial districts: Cedar Run, Center, Lee, Marshall and Scott. Donna Grove chairs it and has served since 2008; Susan Pauling is vice chair. Every current term expires on Dec. 31, 2027, so all five seats are on the ballot in November 2027. Dr. Major Warner is division superintendent.
Each budget starts by cutting the existing one
Before adding anything, the division scrubs the current school budgets against actual staffing and revised retirement rates. That removed $4.77 million in the 2026-27 budget and $2.30 million in 2025-26. What is added back is then presented in fixed categories: keeping the lights on, mandated requirements, grants and restricted funds, health insurance, workforce investment, instruction and student needs, and capital infrastructure and security.
Nearly all the new money goes to pay
Of the $8.62 million the 2026-27 budget grew by, $7.49 million is workforce investment: 6 percent across the board for teaching staff, 4.5 percent for support staff and 3 percent for administrators. The state's own funding assumes a 2 percent increase, so the division is paying past that from its own budget. The $1.60 million extra it asked the county for was for a transfer into the health insurance fund.
Buildings are the part the budget does not cover
A consultant's assessment of school buildings and athletic fields identified about $77.0 million of capital needs, with roof and heating and cooling replacements alone at roughly $14.7 million. The 2026-27 budget puts about $5.2 million into the capital improvement plan and the asset replacement fund combined. The asset replacement fund was set up with the Board of Supervisors so unspent money carries forward, which helps multi-year projects, but the annual amount is a fraction of the identified need.
Four standing committees do the detail work
Most of the division's business is worked through in public committee meetings before it reaches the full board: a building committee that meets monthly on construction and maintenance, a finance committee on the monthly accounts and budget amendments, and policy and personnel committees. The board also meets twice a year with county parks and recreation on shared fields and facilities. In the year reviewed those committees and the board held 54 meetings between them, publishing 951 agenda items.
The division is not in financial distress. Its budget has grown every year in this record, from $177.0 million adopted for 2023-24 to $206.4 million for 2026-27, it protects pay ahead of almost everything else, and the county has funded most of what the board asked for. The graduation rate reported in the budget book is above 96 percent. The strains that show are the building repair backlog and an enrollment forecast that could go either way.
Where the division stands
Students the 2026-27 budget is built onverified
10,500 students in average daily membership
Down from 10,609 budgeted for 2025-26 and 10,630 in each of the three years before that.
Total adopted budget for 2026-27, all fundsverified
206,427,330 dollars
Up $8,619,999 or 4.36 percent on the $197,807,331 revised budget for 2025-26, and up from $177,010,974 adopted for 2023-24.
County transfer in the 2026-27 budgetverified
107,650,967 dollars
About 52 percent of all revenue, up $1,600,000 on the year before. State revenue of $79,097,275 is about 38 percent.
Local Composite Index of ability to pay, 2026-2028verified
0.578 index
Down from 0.6006 for 2024-2026. A lower index means the state judges the county less able to fund its own schools and pays a larger share. The index is built from property values, weighted 50 percent, adjusted gross income at 40 percent and taxable retail sales at 10 percent.
Building repair needs identified by a consultant's assessmentverified
77,000,000 dollars
Against about $5.2 million budgeted for 2026-27 across the capital improvement plan and the asset replacement fund. Roof and heating and cooling replacements alone are put at about $14.7 million.
Full-time equivalent positions funded for 2026-27verified
1,859 positions
Down from 1,929.23 in the 2022-23 budget, a fall of about 70 positions over five budgets, tracking the slow decline in budgeted enrollment.
Housing development applications inside school attendance zones, February 2026verified
2,875 applications
If approved, the division estimates they would add about 820 elementary, 347 middle and 410 high school students, roughly 1,577 in all. These are applications, not approvals, and the division's own enrollment projection deliberately excludes them.
Board and committee meetings on the public record, Sept. 2025 to Aug. 2026verified
54 meetings
Full board meetings, work sessions, closed sessions, an annual planning summit, and the building, finance, policy, personnel and parks co-operative committees, publishing 951 agenda items in all.
Major projects
2026-27 pay package
Adopted April 13, 2026, in effect from July 1, 2026
The largest single thing this budget does. Teaching staff, which here includes counsellors, social workers, psychologists, behaviour analysts, physical therapists and speech and language pathologists, get 6 percent across the board at a cost of $5,407,992. Support staff get 4.5 percent and administrators 3 percent. Smaller pieces reclassify school psychologist interns to a $40,000 starting salary, add two contract days for instructional assistants for training, restructure assistant activities director contracts and add elementary stipends for music productions, yearbook and after-school clubs.
Next: The 2027-28 budget cycle opens with the School Board's planning summit in October 2026.
School Board planning summit sets the budget guidance
Superintendent's proposed budget and capital improvement plan presented
Public hearing on the proposed budget
Board of Supervisors adopts the county budget
School Board adopts the 2026-27 budget at $206,427,330
Funding
State compensation supplement funding covering a 2 percent increase, with the balance from the division's own budget after $4.77 million of internal reductions
Working through the building repair backlog
Ongoing, funded well below the assessed need
A consultant's comprehensive evaluation of school facilities and athletic fields put the division's capital improvement needs at about $77.0 million, with roofs and heating and cooling systems the most critical at roughly $14.7 million. The county included money in the 2022-23 budget to pursue bond financing for part of it. Day to day the work runs through the school asset replacement fund, created jointly with the Board of Supervisors so that unspent money carries forward instead of lapsing, and it pays for things like heating and cooling replacements, roofing, phone and alarm upgrades, bus replacements and technology lifecycle replacement.
Next: The 2026-27 budget increases the capital maintenance plan by $300,000 and adds four buses to the annual replacement plan, taking it to six in the base budget.
Draft capital improvement plan and enrollment update taken to the School Board
Superintendent's proposed budget and capital improvement plan presented
Budget adopted with $1,747,674 for the capital improvement plan and $3,417,454 for asset replacement
Funding
School asset replacement fund and capital improvement plan, funded by Fauquier County, with bond financing for part of the assessed need
Career and technical trades academy
Newly funded for 2026-27
The only new instructional programme in the 2026-27 budget. The division pays $130,000 of tuition for students to take courses and earn certifications at Laurel Ridge Community College in heating and air conditioning, plumbing and heavy equipment operation. It sits alongside the division's existing career and technical work funded by the federal Carl D. Perkins grant and its place in the regional Mountain Vista Governor's School for maths, science and technology.
Next: First cohort in the 2026-27 school year. The budget does not say how many places there are or how students are selected.
Included in the superintendent's proposed budget
Funded at $130,000 in the adopted budget
Funding
Division operating budget, instruction and student needs category
Taylor Middle School renovation and repurposing
Renovation under way; the future of the current building still being decided
The renovation appears on every building committee agenda in this record. Separately the division is deciding what the current Taylor Middle School building becomes: a proposal to repurpose it for alternative programming and central offices went to the October 2025 planning summit, returned to a February 2026 work session and came back as an information item in May 2026. Warrenton Middle School repurposing sits on the same committee's agenda, and Cedar Lee Middle School has an expansion, a transportation hub and a roof replacement the board acted on in August 2026.
Next: The building committee continued to carry the renovation as a standing item through its Aug. 27, 2026 meeting. No cost or completion date appears in the published record.
Renovation, Cedar Lee expansion and a Cedar Lee transportation hub reviewed by the building committee
Repurposing the current building for alternative programming and central offices put to the planning summit
Repurposing returns to a full board work session
Repurposing presented to the board as an information item
Board acts on a Cedar Lee Middle School roof
Funding
County capital improvement plan and the school asset replacement fund
Local elections & school board members
Elections & votes
Board electionProposed
All five Fauquier County School Board seats are up in November 2027
Fauquier County
The Fauquier County School Board has five members, each elected to a four-year term by voters in one of the county's five magisterial districts. Every current member's term expires on Dec. 31, 2027, so all five seats are on the ballot at the November 2027 general election. The incumbents are Donna Grove (Cedar Run, chair, serving since 2008), Susan Pauling (Center, vice chair, since 2020), Clay Campbell (Scott, since November 2022), Dr. Danielle Dean (Marshall, since 2024) and Steve Lewis (Lee, since 2024).
Built from two official sources. The first is the Fauquier County School Board's own published meeting index, covering every meeting the board and its committees have posted; the trailing year from Sept. 8, 2025 to Aug. 27, 2026 contains 54 meetings and 951 agenda items with their categories, headings and action types. The second is the division's budget pages: the adopted budget books for fiscal years 2022 through 2027 and the FY2027 budget technical summary matrix, which sets out every line of the change from one year to the next. Eight documents in all, every one read.
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