{"id":3735,"date":"2025-04-21T17:00:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T21:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/?p=3735"},"modified":"2026-03-25T10:24:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T14:24:06","slug":"community-opinions-on-controversial-cabell-county-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/2025\/04\/21\/community-opinions-on-controversial-cabell-county-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Opinions on Controversial Cabell County Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Owen James<br \/>\n<b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">April 21, 2025<\/span><\/b><br \/>\n<span data-contrast=\"auto\">HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 <span class=\"TextRun SCXW203509288 BCX0\" lang=\"EN\" xml:lang=\"EN\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW203509288 BCX0\">At the beginning of March, the Cabell County Board of Education held a work session addressing the <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW203509288 BCX0\">$12 million-dollar<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW203509288 BCX0\"> gap in their budget for the <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW203509288 BCX0\">2026 school year. Superintendent Dr. Ryan Saxe emphasized the declining student population in the district as a key issue, <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW203509288 BCX0\">warning<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW203509288 BCX0\"> that it may lead to more budget cuts down the line. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"TextRun SCXW203509288 BCX0\" lang=\"EN\" xml:lang=\"EN\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW203509288 BCX0\">Brandon Barbour, an English Language Arts teacher at Huntington East Middle School, says that he is concerned with how these cuts will affect the quality of his students\u2019 education.<\/span><\/span><span class=\"EOP SCXW203509288 BCX0\" data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:276}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW181716921 BCX0\">&#8220;We&#8217;re going to see the effects of programs for the kids, what we can get them in, what type of textbooks we can buy,&#8221; Barbour said.\u00a0 &#8220;<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW181716921 BCX0\">We&#8217;re<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW181716921 BCX0\"> in a technology-driven world now, will we be able to afford those devices for the kids for them to be able to use and be comfortable with, and use them out in their careers? So, I think in the long term it&#8217;s going to hurt student<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW181716921 BCX0\">s.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW169610110 BCX0\">Melissa Mullins, a special education teacher at Huntington East<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW169610110 BCX0\">, is at risk of losing her job as a result of the cuts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW169610110 BCX0\"><span class=\"TextRun SCXW25303965 BCX0\" lang=\"EN\" xml:lang=\"EN\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW25303965 BCX0\">&#8220;I am currently on transfer, and I will have to re-bid on my job as well as take additional tests to re-bid on said job,&#8221; she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW10612391 BCX0\">BJ Roberts,<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW10612391 BCX0\"> a parent of a Barboursville Middle School student, says that the board should <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW10612391 BCX0\">prioritize providing ample<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW10612391 BCX0\"> resources to students before <\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW10612391 BCX0\">allocating<\/span><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW10612391 BCX0\"> funding for other issues.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"TextRun SCXW25731054 BCX0\" lang=\"EN\" xml:lang=\"EN\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW25731054 BCX0\">&#8220;From a policymaker&#8217;s standpoint, instead of wasting time on a bunch of other stuff that&#8217;s not necessarily going to matter in the long run, put the money where it&#8217;s really going to make an impact,&#8221; Roberts said. &#8220;You&#8217;re never going to go wrong when you invest in students and the school system.&#8221;<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Owen James April 21, 2025 HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014 At the beginning of March, the Cabell County Board of Education held a work session addressing the $12 million-dollar gap in their budget for the 2026 school year. Superintendent Dr. Ryan Saxe emphasized the declining student population in the district as a key issue, warning that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1052,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,4],"tags":[1057,1056,1051,1052,1053,1058,1055,115,935,69,1054,73,74,1061,1063,1059,1060,1062,51],"class_list":["post-3735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-wmul-news","tag-budget","tag-budget-cuts","tag-cabell-county","tag-cabell-county-board-of-education","tag-cabell-county-boe","tag-cabell-county-budget","tag-cabell-county-news","tag-college-radio","tag-huntington-news","tag-huntington-wv","tag-huntington-wv-news","tag-wmul-news","tag-newscenter-88","tag-owen-james","tag-owen-james-nc88","tag-owen-james-news","tag-owen-james-newscenter-88","tag-owen-james-wmul","tag-wmul"],"acf":[],"fimg_url":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1052"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3735"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4605,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735\/revisions\/4605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}