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Battle over school budget goes public Friday evening at hearing before Board of Supervisors
By James P. Gannon
The battle over how much to increase county funding for Rappahannock County public schools moves toward its climax Friday as the Board of Supervisors invites county residents to offer their views at a public hearing at 7 p.m. at the Rappahannock County Elementary school gymnasium.
The unusual Friday evening public hearing will be the public’s last chance to weigh in on a subject that has been debated in the county for months. After hearing the public’s views, the supervisors will have a week to decide the school funding issue before making a final decision at their monthly meeting to be held on Monday, May 5.
The focus of the hearing will be the School Board’s proposed budget for the coming school year, 2008-2009, which asks for $8,759,098 in county funds, an increase of $470,709 or 5.7% over the current year. Even though the total budget of $12,063,799 is slightly less than the current year’s, the School Board is asking for the boost in county funding to fully offset a cut of $443,786 in state funding and a $26,155 reduction in Federal aid.
The budget would provide a 3.5% pay increase for all school employees, plus annual step increases for teachers and others on the pay scale, resulting in pay hikes of about 5%. Teacher salaries would range from starting pay of $37,656 to $60,334 for 10 months.
Though the public hearing is focused on the School Board’s proposed budget, the Supervisors also have before them an alternative proposed by County Administrator John McCarthy. In drawing up a proposed overall county budget for the coming fiscal year, McCarthy proposed to increase school funding by $220,709, or $250,000 less than asked by the School Board.
McCarthy said the $220,709 increase could be provided without asking for an increase in county real estate taxes. Fully funding the School Board budget probably would require an increase of one or two cents in the county’s property tax rate per $100 of assessed value, in addition to a one cent rate increase sought by McCarthy to fund a new emergency communications system for fire, rescue and law enforcement.
Some taxpayers, including members of the Concerned Taxpayers of Rappahannock, are opposing any increase in county school funding. They argue that at a time when school enrollment is declining, the school board should be able to cut staffing and other expenses to avoid asking more money from Rappahannock taxpayers.
School Superintendent Robert Chappell and members of the School Board, and supporters such as officials of the Headwaters Foundation, have been campaigning for the county funds increase to fully offset the loss of state and federal funds.
In the past week, for instance, School Board member Rosa Crocker of Wakefield District sent out an e-mail plea to members of Trinity Episcopal Church in Washington, Va., to come to the public hearing to support the school board’s budget. Crocker wrote, “Without full County funding to bridge state and federal shortfall, additional cuts are inevitable, with great risk to already-threatened staff morale and student services.”
In her message, Crocker wrote that the “School Board already slashed $350,000 in operating costs and 6 staff positions UP FRONT,” a claim that may confuse anyone who reads it to mean actual cuts from the current school budget. The claimed $350,000 savings, however, come out of a hypothetical budget that was never actually proposed by Superintendent Chappell.
When Chappell released his proposed draft budget for 2008-09, he took the unusual step of projecting a budget that would have required county funding of about $9,150,000, or $861,381 (10.4%) more than in the current year. But at the same time, he indicated he would not propose such a budget because he planned to offer $415,000 in “savings” to be disclosed later. So his proposal was for $8,734,770 in county funding, a 5.4% increase.
Chappell unveiled his $415,000 in savings on March 17, but the School Board did not accept the full package of savings, paring it back to $358,000. The Superintendent had proposed eliminating two teaching positions in kindergarten and first grade in view of declining enrollment in those classes, but the board decided to cut only one teaching position instead.
The proposed School Board budget of $12,063,799 is $33,135 less than the current school budget. Of that, $28,788 resulted from an automatic decline in the costs of debt service (payments plus interest) on the school system’s four outstanding loans–a cost saving that required no “slashing” by the School Board.
-- James P. Gannon
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