County says schools will get $6 million less from Virginia
Albemarle County schools expect about $6 million less in state funding next fiscal year than this fiscal year — likely equating to another blow to teachers and less funding for operational expenses.
“That’s going to present a real challenge for us,” said Bruce Benson, assistant superintendent for planning and operations.
The Virginia Department of Education recently released its “composite index,” indicating the percentage the state will pay to individual school divisions toward basic education costs. The amount of money the state will give localities in fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2012 is based largely on student enrollment figures and how financially well-off a locality is, determined by a state formula.
Benson said the projected $6 million reduction is “a preliminary estimate.” Top Albemarle school officials say they’ve already formulated a lean budget for the current fiscal year, so making more cuts won’t be easy.
Employees, including teachers, received no pay increases this year, operational expenses were slashed, and staff size was shrunk. The state funding reduction, potentially coupled with local revenue declines on the way, means the county will also have to weigh whether to increase the real-estate tax rate.
“We cannot easily make up $6 million,” School Board Chairman Brian Wheeler said Thursday.
Wheeler said that the school division has done a great job of spending efficiently but added: “If our state and local revenues are failing us, that’s outside of our control.”
Wheeler said the declines in revenue have “a chilling effect on our ability to meet the community’s expectations.”
Of the six current Board of Supervisors members, only Lindsay G. Dorrier Jr. and Kenneth C. Boyd have publicly expressed opposition to raising the county’s real-estate tax rate to 77.2 cents per $100 of assessed value next year. At that rate, officials suspect the average homeowner would pay the same real-estate taxes next year as under this year’s 74.2-cent rate, because home values are continuing to decline.
However, two Republicans set to take over as supervisors in January campaigned on a commitment to take a scalpel to spending and keep taxes low. Wheeler said the county has a low tax rate compared with most localities in Virginia and that “we have no choice but to look locally at our tax base” to raise more revenue.
“I think that the starting point for the discussion is at 77.2 cents,” Wheeler said. But even if a 77.2-cent tax rate were imposed next year, it’s “virtually guaranteed” that teachers won’t get pay raises next school year because the county doesn’t have enough money.
Of the county’s $303.7 million budget, $149.1 million was allotted to the school division for the current fiscal year, $2.2 million less than the school system’s fiscal 2009 budget.
The school division did, however, have about a $6.3 million fund balance going into this fiscal year — a figure that hasn’t been audited and is likely imprecise. Benson said school officials had planned to allot about one-third of the fund balance to the current budget, with another one-third being set aside for shortfalls this fiscal year and the rest designated for next fiscal year.
Charlottesville schools are also facing state funding reductions.
Ed Gillaspie, the finance director for Charlottesville schools, said the division expects to get about $1.04 million less from the state — per year, for two years —beginning in fiscal 2011.
“It’s about a 7 percent cut for us,” Gillaspie said.
“Right out of the gate, you’re getting a million dollars less,” Gillaspie said, adding that the million-dollar cut is on top of any other funding reductions that might come from the state, as a result of declining revenues.
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My observations are based upon my experiences having two children attend Albemarle County public middle and high schools. I agree that the school division administration does not do a good job justifying the amount and types of spending that it does. I think this explains much of the mistrust that taxpayers have for the school division spending priorities. I believe, however, that the lack of accountability is caused by the budget process, and not because the people involved don’t want to be accountable.
The school board does not have taxing authority, and has to go to the Board of Supervisors for the funds to run the division. There are two groups of people the budget has to be justified to, the taxpayers and the supervisors. Many taxpayers will always criticize any education spending, and are often the loudest critics. Their complaints are usually simply dismissed. The supervisors seem to me to be easily satisfied with any budget that can allow them to go back to their constituents at election time without having voted to raise taxes.
Conceiving the schools divisions budget specifically to please either of these two groups does permanent harm to our children. I agree that the school division needs to adopt a zero-based budgeting system that accurately reflects the real needs of our children’s education. However, I suspect that many advocates of the plan would be surprised that a truly zero-based budget would require more money than the current budget method. If lower class sizes can be justified based upon research, then the Division administration needs to ask for appropriate funds to keep class sizes low. If the hour-long bus rides that our children now endure can be shown to be detrimental to their learning, then more money needs to be requested to buy more buses and hire more drivers to lessen the ride time. If the Arts can be shown to contribute to students’ learning, then proper funding for a complete Arts program should be requested. If the high school needs to have classes in Arabic and Chinese, instead of the old stand-bys Spanish and French, then the division should fund them. The school division budget should reflect current research and best educational practice required to provide our children with an excellent education. I don’t believe that it does, now.
I would like the laws changed so that school boards have direct taxing authority to eliminate the “middle man” in the school budgeting process. I know that this won’t happen. At least I would like to see the school division take an inventory of its programs and estimate the amount of money that would be required to fully-fund them. Then, go to the supervisors with this justified budget and let the supervisors either come up with the money or explain to their constituents why they didn’t vote to fully-fund the schools.
When our children leave school, either high school or college, they are increasingly competing for jobs and spots in colleges with, not only people from neighboring school divisions and states, but even from foreign countries. Knowledge-based jobs of the future can be performed anywhere the Internet reaches. Don’t we want our young people to be as qualified for those jobs as their counterparts living in India and China? They need to be to get those jobs.
My posts have been misinterpretted. I never said that the few examples I cited would generate 10 million in savings. I acknowledged that there were more things that could be trimmed if someone were willing to make some hard choices. I offered alternatives to be considered rather than simply raising taxes, taxes, taxes.
Do we need separate classes in ceramics, water colors, acrylics, printmaking, etc? The school that I went to offered Art 1, Art 2, Art 3, and Art4 in high school, taught by an artist with a teaching certificate, and gave us the opportunity to explore a wide variety of techniques and materials, along with theory. Music was either Choral or Band. None of us grew up to be ax murderers, and last I checked, a good percentage of us went on to finish college and had good jobs. No we don’t need to go back to school marms and one room schools. I am happy to report that those do still exist in many parts of our fine country, including parts of California, New England, and the plains states, and they seem to be able to meet all state educational requirements for graduation to the same degree that the metropolitan schools do, and have their share of college graduates.
When the economy is bad it is time to take a look at what we can live with, and what we can live without. Travel to other places and you will see that people manage to succeed without 35 kinds of toothpaste to pick from, without iPhones, wiis, and blackberries, without $100 seats at a sports event, without weekly visits to a nail salon, without the latest fashions, and without a whole heck of other things that people have come to believe are “necessary”. I am a firm believer in education, but the schools aren’t there to “entertain” our students. Teach them math, literacy, history, science, computer skills, and other basics that they need to become productive citizens of the world. Provide cultural enrichment. Provide health education which includes nutrition and physical fitness. But let them learn ceramics and yoga on their own dime.
Can’t read between the lines? It’s all fluff. Why we ever went beyond the one room schoolhouse and the schoolmarm who was paid in kind is beyond me—they learnt us real well. 
Not to worry, the three blind men will show us the way! Zero budgeting is your best friend.
Twinmom: In light of the impending cut in state funding for education and a stagnent tax rate, everything will be under consideration. There should be no sacred cows. But, I’m glad you recognize public education as an essential service to be supported by tax dollars. Personally, I could not care less about film festivals, developmental agencies, etc. Good teachers (and policemen and firefighters) are far more of a neccessity. But having a few less buses making a few less stops a) is not going to generate $10 million in savings and b) neccessitates giving up a safety consideration that some might not agree is just a “nice” thing to have. Big cuts to what many consider “necessities” are inevitable at the current tax rate. To claim that there is enough “nice things to do” fluff in the school’s budget that can be cut to avoid a degredation of essential educational services
is delusional. (And, I’m not sure how you would effectively teach art and music “along more general lines” and without “specialized equipment & material” like instruments, paint, paint brushes, etc. I also think it would me more than just “nice” to have “specialized” staff like an actual art or music teacher teaching those classes). How about this: When the superintendent submits her budget request for next year, you log onto the school’s website, actually read it, and let us know what’s in the “nice things to do” category that adds up to $10 million. FirstAmendment can do this too. A good time can be had by all!!
BoarderPatrol: For summer school, the buses only stop on Dick Woods Road, not into Rosemont, the Rocks, etc, (in Ivy) and it seems to work just fine. Granted there will be more kids in the regular school year than in the summer, but it is worth consideration, isn’t it? Just because the county used to be able to provide door to door service when they had plenty of money, doesn’t mean that they can’t re-evaluate the NECESSITY of the practice. Maybe my suggestions don’t add up to a ton of money saved, but the point is that there are a lot of things in the schools’ budget, and the county budget in general, that are not NECESSITIES. They are “nice things to do”, but not requirements. Does the county need to support the Film Festival money, when they just reported thatthey had record attendance? Do we need all the community development agencies giving advice to first time homebuyers when no one can get a mortgage to buy a home? Oh these things, and more like them, are nice to do, but are they an absolute necessity in lean times, when higher taxes will force more people towards foreclosure?
And don’t tell me that the increased taxes will be offset by lower property values. When they re-assessed last time, our property went UP in value, not down.
Government is supposed to be there to establish laws so that we can all live together peaceably and to provide for common necessities, like roads, education, jails, national defense. It is not a Big Daddy that you run to everytime you need something that you don’t want to pay for yourself. I am happy to pay my dues, but we are taxed when we earn the money, taxed when we spend it, taxed if we save it, taxed when we die and give it away, taxed by the state if we pay too much tax to the federal government and it is refunded, and now our health benefits will be taxed. Overall, more than 50% (yes HALF) of our families’ earnings go to taxes. Why should we even bother working?
Our educators are, by definiation, supposed to be a bright group of people. If they start to look long and hard at what they can live without, I’m sure that they will find a few things. But one of the problems is the political correctness of it all. No one would want to say that theInternational Foods (or whatever) isn’t “critical” to a well-rounded education, because that might offend some foreign national who is teaching it. And to answer your question, no I am not against teaching art & music in the schools, but I think you can teach those classes along more general lines, and not incur extra costs for specialized equipment, materials, and staff.
Look. This decision of whether to fund public education is a done deal. And, Foehammer, I agree, its not just about money, you can throw good money after bad. No doubt.
When I moved here in 1980, teachers were paid a pittance—not only out of line with any college educated profession, or the cost of living in this community, but less than half of what was being paid to teachers with similar education and training and similar career opportunities—in Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina—why on earth would you chose to teach here? The physical facilities were a joke. Over time, despite people like Ken Boyd (Twinmom sounds like she could be a twin sister) apologizing for the status quo, some things have improved, albeit marginally. School campuses no longer look like refugee villages. Teachers no longer need to subsist on food stamps.
The irony is this: a group of stingy, selfish, anti-education ingrates who once got away with paying half price, saw their discount dwindle. So now, guys like Keith Drake (who deos not live in a house of straw, btw) can rant how the budget has grown beyond population growth, and inflation. Duh.
Albemarle County—fact—ranks in the 20% percentile nationally among counties in the US in terms of effective tax rate.
But hey, I get it. I really do. Let ‘em all home school. I got mine. I don’t need any—any—County services. I want a zero tax rate, and a rebate for the last 29 years, plus interest. Do that, and I am happy with whatever you do out there—elect orangutangs to the BOS for all I care. Knock yourself out arresting restaurant owners for sign violations. Allow developers free reign over raping the countryside, and by no means, charge them a nickle for their “contributions”. Build WalMart Supercenters from one end of the county to another, you’ll have plenty of employees who can’t read or write.
How small minded can you get—geesh, 20%? It’s easily over 100% fat!
LOL
As a teacher, let me assure you that teachers DO need those professional learning days to accomplish everything that isn’t feasable to do in our 45 minutes of planning a day. In that 45 minute block, we have to return phone calls and emails to parents and coworkers, prepare the materials for future lessons in the day, have PLC (Professional Learning Community) meetings with our team within our schools, plan units and grade assessments, and possibly run to the restroom before we have to pick up our lovebugs. Take my word, those free periods, are not free of work.
If Albemarle County wants to reach strategic goal #3 “Recruit, retain, and develop a diverse cadre of the highest quality teaching personnel, staff, and administrators”, I suggest they look to pay increases, or these high quality teachers will be looking for employment in neighboring districts or will be leaving the teaching profession.
Charlottesville has a surplus because they get $18 million of county tax dollars through the ridiculous revenue sharing agreemeent. Making our effective tax rate 64 cents - the lowest in the state given the demographics of our county. We subsidize city schools (and gov’t).
I’m sure parents would love big groups of kids standing on the sides of “through” roads in the morning. That sounds safe. Do you really think there’s $10+ million of teacher’s salaries tied up in electives?? Do art and music count as “entertainment/hobbies”?
Please talk to a teacher. I’m sure they will tell you about all the free time they don’t know what to do with, especially now that they will have 35 kids in each class. Eliminating ALL high school sports will save approx $1.2 million (and that’s being considered)- little more than 10% of the funding shortfall the county is facing. Twinmom’s wish list for balancing the school budget without a tax increse is nothing more than conjecture and clearly not grounded in reality. She has a good chance of getting elected to the BOS.
The state of Utah spends half much on each student per year than the state of New York does. The standardized test scores in these two states are almost indentical. Is it really the money that is the problem?
Gordie,
You make posts more good later, when home you get to at….ok?
The City of Charlottesville just announced that they have a million + surplus from last year. So what’s their problem??
There are places that ACPS could tighten their belts. Transportation is better than it has been, with some special needs students riding in cars with a single driver instead of on a small bus with a driver, aide, and lots of empty seats. They could still further consolidate bus routes by not going into every private subdivision and development, and instead have a community bus stop on the through roads. That would save money, and decrease the amount of time the kids spend on the bus. Parents will complain that it is “inconvenient”, but if it meant not raising taxes, so be it.
Take a serious look at the 13 “professional learning days” that we pay teachers to have meetings and prepare instruction. (Those are in addition to their other continuing education days.) If you reduce the time that is allotted for meetings, you will reduce the demand for meetings. Teachers already have free periods during the day for instructional preparation, they don’t need extra paid days to complete report cards.
Put the basics and academic rigor back into the curriculum. No more Ceramics, Yoga, and International Foods classes. Teach only the courses that will prepare our citizens to lead productive lives. Less emphasis on competetive sports, with more emphasis on life-long physical fitness, would also be a money saver and more useful in the long run.
Every year we hear the same Chicken-Little warnings that the sky is falling and the schools will have to cut teachers if taxes aren’t raised. That is a scare tactic that hits the elementary school parents particularly, because they don’t want to see a classroom of 35-40 students and one teacher. Cut the middle school and high school classes that are little more than entertainment/hobbies and you will be able to afford the important stuff without a tax increase.
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