Teachers may not get raises
Albemarle County staff could see more staff reductions and county teachers may not see any pay increases next year as the result of a gloomy financial forecast.
The county is facing a projected $4.74 million budget shortfall for this fiscal year as revenue declines because of the wounded economy. As a result, Albemarle supervisors and School Board members expressed little optimism Wednesday that teachers would get pay raises next school year.
“Let’s just be honest and say, ‘We don’t have the revenue to meet our strategy,’” School Board member Steve Koleszar said.
Albemarle’s finances are not only diminishing because of the economic downturn, but the county is also being pinched by a reduction in state funds.
Since 2004, funding to the county from the Virginia Department of Transportation has declined about 75 percent, according statistics presented by local officials on Wednesday.
Board of Supervisors Chairman David L. Slutzky has said that one of the most concerning county issues is the lack of funding for police. The county is 18 officers short of its goal to have 1.5 officers per 1,000 residents, officials said Wednesday. Officials said earlier this year that they’d like to have 141 officers.
The $4.74 million budget shortfall will mean $2.67 million less for schools, $1.77 million less for local government and $300,000 less for capital expenditures.
To make up for the shortfall, the county plans to dip into its contingency fund, reduce funding for conservation easements and freeze 10 more county staff positions — on top of 55 frozen positions currently frozen.
Though the county is far from making any decisions about whether teachers will receive pay raises next school year, some officials have said the odds of teachers receiving raises aren’t high. County teachers also didn’t get pay raises this year.
Web site to get redesign
In other business, the county is revamping its Web site.
County spokeswoman Lee Catlin said that staff budgeted $30,000 for a consultant to redesign the county’s Web site, though she said the county expects to spend slightly less than budgeted.
Catlin said that every dollar the county spends to increase the Web site’s functionality and accessibility “results in a many-fold return in our productivity, not to mention convenience for customers.”
The Web site currently gets about 5,000 visits per day.
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Reader Reactions
Teachers: a whole lot of people are not getting a raise again this year. Many of them have also lost their homes, too. I feel blessed, don’t you?
Maybe Slutsky and his band of bleeding hearts could take a pay cut and give it to the teachers, public servants who are actually doing something that contributes to society rather than leaching from it!!
County Teachers going without raises.
Inadequate police staffing.
County to now have 65 frozen posts.
City of Charlottesville rebricks the Mall.
City of Charlottesville has surplus.
Anyone see what’s WRONG with EXTORTION, oops I mean Revenue Sharing? Too bad the three wimps who are running the the Samuel Miller District won’t even think about trying to figure a way out of it.
It was UNCONSCIONABLE contract from the getgo entered into under DURESS.
Charlottesville is run by spendthrifts while the County suffers, and they DON’T CARE!
Teacher Man - I agree with you. Your compensation should allow for you to not worry about your family. Especially as you work in service to the families of the county.
I am a former teacher and I am trying to get on the school board to make a difference in this regard.
I hope the Board will figure out a way to avoid using salaries as the only cost cutting measure and are able to find savings elsewhere - I think it is possible.
I hope you stay to help increase the long term retention statistic rather than the unfortunate alternative.
Next time you wonder why 50% of teachers quit within the first 5 years of teaching, look no further than this article. With all the possible ways to save money, the only one mentioned in this article is teacher salaries.
We’re looking at two years in a row without an increase. I don’t do this job because of the money, but at some point I have to consider my ability to provide for my family. I am now in the unenviable position of trying to find a full-time job outside of education.
How can this not affect the quality of education?
$30,000 to just redesign it? What is the cost to change it to the consultants re-design or will that be free? Was it broken? If 5000 visits a day is a sign of it being useless or broken how many more visits will they get when it is fixed? 50,000? When I visited it it seemed to work ok. Are we keeping up with Jones again?
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