n LOUDOUN
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n LEESBURG
VOL. 5, NO. 12
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n PUBLIC SAFETY
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n OBITUARIES
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n PUBLIC NOTICES
Pg. 34
FEBRUARY 6, 2020
School Board Caps Teacher Raises in Final Budget NORMAN K. STYER
nstyer@loudounnow.com
Renss Greene/Loudoun Now
Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj is now a month into her first term—the first time the office has changed hands in Loudoun in 16 years—and is busy filling out her offices.
New Chief Prosecutor Brings New Perspective on Justice BY RENSS GREENE
rgreene@loudounnow.com
This year, for the first time in 16 years, Loudoun got a new top prosecutor: Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj. And Biberaj is rethinking what it means to do justice in Loudoun’s legal system. Biberaj talks quickly and works with a frenetic energy, at a desk mostly hidden under piles of files and statistics, and accompanied by her dog Lexis— after LexisNexis, the electronic repository of law, legal cases and research. By contrast, some of the other offices in the building are still dark. Unlike most other elected offices, when a new commonwealth’s attorney takes office, much of that office’s staff can change. The change can be greater
when a Democrat moves into a chair that has been held by Republicans for the past quarter century. Biberaj said out of 19 attorneys in the office, nine—almost half—left for various reasons following November’s election. A month into her term, five slots have already been filled, and she hopes to have the rest filled by the end of February. She has been looking for fresh faces to put at those desks. “What we wanted to do is what we said when we were running, is we want to have some diversity of experience,” Biberaj said. She is interviewing attorneys with experience in criminal defense and civil litigation, with the goal of building a team with a diversity of backgrounds. “We’re looking for litigators, trial attorneys, but
The Loudoun County School Board on Tuesday night waded through a five-hour markup session that added and subtracted from the $1.395 billion Fiscal Year 2021 budget proposed by Superintendent Eric Williams. Williams’ budget sought 521.25 additional full-time equivalent positions—bringing the school division’s staffing to a total of 12,320—and $113.6 million in additional spending—including a 10.8 percent increase in local tax funding. The biggest chunk of Williams’ proposed budget dealt with raises for all staff members. Nearly half of the expense increase would be used to boost staff salaries. For teachers, salaries were proposed to increase between $3,726 and $8,029, with an overall average increase of $5,445 for the division’s 6,592 teachers, according to Williams’ presentation. Since Williams proposed his budget on Jan. 9, the School Board—with seven of the nine members in their first month of service—held twice-weekly meetings to receive detailed briefings about each department and submitted more than 190 formal questions for the staff to research. When it came time for formal votes on Tuesday, School Board members took the deepest cut early in the session, voting 6-3 to cap teacher raises at 6 percent. That is expected to achieve a $26.7 million savings. Jeff Morse (Dulles) noted that Fairfax County’s proposed school budget eyes a 5.8 percent spending increase and about 3.5 percent pay increases for teachers, while the region’s consumer price increase came in at about 1.5 percent. In contrast, he said Williams was seeking an 8.9 percent overall increase, with teacher compensation increases—a combination of market adjustments, step increases and classification reviews—averaging more than 7 percent. He raised concerns that the proposal would result in raises as high as 16 percent for some teachers and some getting 25 percent raises over just two years. Morse’s proposed 6 percent cap was countered with a new staff proposal for a 10.1 percent cap that would result in $5.4 BUDGET continues on page 11
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