Subcommittee advances bill requiring school divisions to report support-staff salary averages to state

Delegate Askew introduced House Bill 1983, which would require each school board to collect and submit to the Department of Education data on average salaries for support services personnel beginning with the 2025–26 school year. The Department of Education would publicly post aggregated, disaggregated tables and include them in the agency’s annual reporting.

Chad Stewart of the Virginia Education Association told the committee the measure is a transparency effort to fill a data gap on non-teacher support-staff pay and would add categories to existing salary reports. No opposition testimony was offered in subcommittee. Delegate Cousins moved to report the bill; the clerk recorded the subcommittee vote as 7 to 0 in favor.

What’s next: HB 1983 was reported by the subcommittee and will move forward for further consideration; stakeholders said existing reporting mechanisms can be extended to include support-staff categories.