Alexandria School Board Weighs Its First Raise Since 2007 — Alongside an Election Overhaul

Alexandria's school board is weighing the first pay raise for its members in nearly two decades, and the question arrives packaged with a bigger one: how the nine-member board itself should be elected. The board discussed earlier this fall increasing member pay from $15,000 — the salary since 2007 — to $28,000 on January 1, 2028, an 87 percent increase, and then by $5,000 every July 1 until members reach $43,000 in the 2031 fiscal year, ALXnow reported.

The comparisons explain the push. Fairfax County school board members earn $48,000 and Arlington County's earn $25,000, and Alexandria's City Council raised its own pay in 2025, lifting the mayor from $41,500 to $72,000 and council members from $37,500 to $68,000. The school board's timing is set by law, not preference: members cannot raise their own pay mid-term, board members said in a blog post, so the board must act by December 2026 for any increase to take effect after the next election.

The election overhaul runs on a separate track. A School Board and City Council ad hoc committee on election reforms is recommending moving the board from three-year terms to four-year terms; it did not recommend staggered terms or a change to the board's size, and it will present its report to the City Council on November 10. The idea is not new — in November 2024 the school board passed a resolution asking the Council to amend the city charter to lengthen terms and move away from electing all nine members in the same three-year cycle.

Pay and terms follow different roads from here. The board can act on its own pay, but a term change requires a city charter amendment, preceded by a public hearing, and legislation from the Virginia General Assembly — which board member Kelly Carmichael Booz said could consider it in 2027 but is more likely to take it up in 2028. Alexandria voters will get the committee's full case first, at the November 10 Council presentation.