This week, Fairfax County’s school board is scheduled to adopt its fiscal 2025 proposed budget, totaling $3.8 billion, an 8.6% increase of $301.8 million from fiscal 2024. Rather than adding tax dollars to an already egregiously inflated sum, the local school district desperately needs a zero-based budgeting process, an external audit, and continued oversight.

The fiscal 2025 budget increase includes a 6% market scale pay increase for all employees, totaling $170.7 million. While a market scale pay increase might make sense for lower-paid employees such as teachers and bus drivers, given inflation, it is not at all clear why the district’s administrators need a pay increase.