Superintendent’s budget proposes no staff cuts, no salary increases
By James P. Gannon
School Superintendent Robert Chappell proposed a “hold-the-line” budget for Rappahannock County Public Schools Tuesday that calls for no cutbacks in school staffing but also no pay increases next year for teachers or other school employees.
Proposing his last budget before his planned retirement, Chappell steered a middle course that avoids layoffs of school employees but envisions a year without a pay increase of any kind, including the usual “step increases” that teachers and others receive in recognition of an additional year of experience.
“With much regret, I am not proposing a salary increase for teachers and support employees, not even an experience step increase,” Chappell said in a written statement to the School Board. “Employees deserve at least a step increase which would cost $115,000, because of the high quality education they provide Rappahannock children.”
But the future of Chappell’s proposed 2010-2011 budget is highly uncertain, in part because it is based on former Virginia Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine’s proposed state budget, which is certain to be rewritten and probably cut by the General Assembly and new Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell. Any further cut in state aid to schools would flow down to the county level and could require additional cuts to the school budget, or a hard decision to ask for more county money and a likely tax increase in Rappahannock.
As it stands, Chappell’s proposal would keep the county’s funding of the schools exactly even with the $8,509,098 budgeted for the current fiscal year. At that level, the county would provide 73.5% of total school spending, with projected state funding of $2,456,194 providing 21.2%, and Federal funds of $526,895 contributing about 4.5% of the total.
Chappell’s proposal pegs the total school budget at $11,575,559, just slightly below the $11.6 million approved for the current year.
Though he is proposing no increase in county spending on schools in the year ahead, Chappell conceded that his proposal may have to be rewritten by the School Board, depending in part on state legislative action.
“Governor Kaine’s proposed budget cut funding for the RCPS by $59,019 which is included in the above calculations,” the superintendent told the School Board. But Kaine’s budget also proposed a first-time-ever bonus for Rappahannock schools of $240,000, which may be an easy target for legislative cutting.
“An additional loss of State revenues of $240,000 in ‘Supplemental Basic Aid’ is possible. The State may make additional cuts. Therefore, the budget the School Board proposes to the Board of Supervisors by April 1 may look different than this once the State passes its budget,” Chappell’s statement said.
The draft budget projects an average enrollment in the two county schools of 917 students, compared with an average of 902 in the budget for the current school year.