The Virgin Islands Department of Education is seeking $186.7 million for its fiscal year 2027 budget that would primarily fund employee salaries and benefits, school operating costs, and core educational services.
Testifying before the Senate Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance, Department of Education Commissioner Dionne Wells-Hedrington said Tuesday the proposed $186,691,691 allocation represents a 4.11% increase over the department’s current $179.3 million budget.
The bulk of the request is dedicated to personnel costs, including $109.4 million for salaries and $60.4 million for fringe benefits. The remaining funds would support operations, utilities, supplies and capital projects. Wells-Hedrington said the department’s spending is largely driven by the cost of maintaining schools and paying employees.
Senators also questioned the proposed $7.5 million utilities allocation, nearly $1 million below the current-year $8.5 million allocation. Committee Chair Sen. Novelle Francis Jr. asked how the department could reduce utility funding amid inflation and rising energy costs. Wells-Hedrington said the figure reflects the Office of Management and Budget’s recommendation rather than an expectation of reduced usage, noting schools require continuous power for kitchens, cold storage and technology systems.
Staffing shortages were a major focus of the hearing, with officials warning that upcoming retirements could further strain the department.
Wells-Hedrington said the department has 2,034 active employees, with 257 currently eligible to retire, many of them teachers and paraprofessionals. She warned that the department does not have enough replacement teachers available if a large number of employees retire.
The Department of Education has recorded 122 separations territory‑wide as of June 3, 2026, including 28 retirements and 31 resignations in the St. Croix district and 14 retirements and 33 resignations in the St. Thomas–St. John district.
To address vacancies, officials said the department has implemented salary increases under the American Federation of Teachers contract, raised some lower‑paid employees up to $35,000, and launched a “Grow Your Own” initiative with the University of the Virgin Islands to help paraprofessionals pursue degrees in education and move into teaching roles.
Wells-Hedrington said the department is also grappling with a declining student population and a national teacher shortage: enrollment has fallen from 13,758 students in 2015–2016 to about 10,300 in recent years, even as a large cohort of staff nears retirement. She called the number of retirement-eligible employees “very scary, very concerning.”
Lawmakers also questioned the elimination of local funding for interscholastic sports. The department’s miscellaneous line item, which included roughly $230,000 last year to help support interscholastic sports, is set at zero in the fiscal year 2027 recommendation.
Wells-Hedrington said the reduction does not reflect a lack of support for athletics but means the department will have to find other funding sources for student sports. Sen. Kurt A. Vialet criticized the cut and said he expects the Legislature to restore the funding, saying, “I think my colleagues are going to agree to put it back.”
Senators also questioned approximately $2.2 million in unpaid obligations to vendors, including payments owed to cleaning services, lease and rental providers, catering companies, security firms and maintenance contractors. Deputy Commissioner Hasina Harris said the department has submitted the details to the Office of Management and Budget for funding consideration and is trying to prioritize payments using other available funds while it waits for a response.
Senators also raised concerns about the condition of the St. Croix district’s administrative office, which Sen. Novelle Francis Jr. described as a “sick building” because of mold problems. Superintendent Carla Bastian‑Knight told lawmakers she works in that office and “suffers the consequences of that building,” estimating that “at least 40 employees” are housed there.
Senators raised concerns about delays in special education evaluations and outstanding payments to providers. The St. Thomas–St. John district continues to face a significant backlog, and Wells-Hedrington said the district has experienced high turnover among special education directors.
Wells-Hedrington said she has ordered what she described as a “temporary takeover” of special education in the St. Thomas–St. John district while officials implement a corrective action plan.
“It is a problem, it is something that we recognize, and we’re working to correct it in the St. Thomas–St. John district,” she said.
On St. Croix, Insular Superintended Carla Bastian-Knight said the district has reduced its evaluation backlog from about 400 students to 119 after completing 60 evaluations during the summer and is seeking additional funding to clear the remaining cases.
Senators also questioned how recently negotiated AFT salary increases were being implemented. Human Resources Director Nicole Jacobs said the raises took effect Sept. 1, 2025, and that as of this week, personnel action forms had been fully executed for 1,251 of 1,371 active AFT employees.
Wells‑Hedrington said the territory has secured approximately $3.5 billion in federal disaster‑recovery funding to repair, rebuild and modernize school infrastructure. The Arthur A. Richards PreK–8 School on St. Croix is scheduled to open on Aug. 10, with work continuing at Charlotte Amalie High School, Central High School, the St. Croix Educational Complex and the new Julius E. Sprauve School on St. John.
Wells-Hedrington told senators she is “not as concerned about the budget” itself, apart from overdue vendor payments, but is “extremely concerned about the attendance rates in our schools,” warning that the territory faces an “attendance crisis” that is hurting student achievement and school accountability ratings.
She said the department has “exhausted its efforts in terms of strategies, accountability, reporting” and urged lawmakers to review attendance-related legislation and give the agency more “teeth” to address the problem.
“Every day that a child misses is a day of instruction,” she said, adding that “sometimes we feel like we take a couple steps forward and then we shoot backwards because of our attendance crisis.”
