Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 8, 1990 TAG: 9004080064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: PATRICIA LOPEZ BADEN EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Three years ago, they lopped off $250,000 in benefits for cafeteria workers and cut the $7,200 that would have sent four honors students to the Governors' School for Math and Science, in order to balance the budget.
Two years ago, they laid off 114 employees - including half of the teachers' aides - and axed the grade school art program, to balance the budget.
One year ago, they borrowed $1.2 million from the state to make repairs that had been postponed in favor of balancing the budget.
This year, School Board members simply busted the budget.
They went ahead with the expansion of a dropout-prevention program even after county supervisors refused to fund it, plunging the district into a $1 million deficit.
The move has forced the School Board members to freeze virtually all spending for the fiscal year, and to ask the supervisors for a $500,000 advance on next year's money.
It could cost them their financial autonomy, since the price of that bailout by the supervisors may be the takeover of their finance department by the county.
School officials say the current fiscal crisis is an isolated incident that will not recur. They further maintain that they did nothing wrong and see no problem in borrowing against next year's funds.
Board Chairman Frank Thomas said that given the chance to do it again, "I feel quite certain we would have done it the same way. I don't think we had a lot of choice as far as going with the [dropout] program."
But others say the deficit is part of a pattern, that school officials are stubbornly trying to provide "limousine service on a Volkswagen budget" - and failing.
Over the past few years, spending problems have forced cuts in every area, from band uniforms to summer school. At one point, desperate to save pennies wherever possible, administrators proposed discontinuing juice for kindergartners.
"Eventually, it catches up with you," said Doris Boitnott, director of the Roanoke County Education Association, which represents most of the county's teachers.
"Part of me is very empathetic with the School Board," she said. "They're very decent people and try to make fair decisions. I don't have any question that their heart is in the right place.
"But I think they've absorbed a mindset of living on imaginary money," she said. "Charge it now and somehow you'll pay it off later - but how is not what's uppermost in your mind."
Part of the district's budget woes are readily traceable to a loss of $2 million from the state in 1988, a continuing decline in student enrollment and a mounting list of state mandates that have forced costly teacher raises.
Through it all, the School Board has struggled to maintain an academic program that continually reaps state and national honors, and that many say is the county's biggest draw.
But it is, without a doubt, expensive.
For instance, the state mandates and helps pay for a half-day kindergarten. The county has a full-day program that costs an additional $737,000.
The state mandates a six-period day for high schools. The county has seven, for which it pays an extra $2 million.
The state says underenrolled schools should be shut down. The county says it is committed to neighborhood schools and has spent heavily to renovate Bent Mountain Elementary, which serves fewer than 60 pupils.
A county-commissioned study in 1988 found that county schools employed 286 more teachers, counselors and specialists than required by the state. Since the state pays only for mandated positions, the county picked up the tab for an extra $7 million.
Supervisors say they don't want to compromise the quality of the school system, but they do want responsible financial planning and some system of accountability.
"We have great schools in the county," Supervisors Chairman Dick Robers said. "I absolutely think there is enough money to fund a quality school system.
"We want to preserve that, but at the same time, it is just irresponsible to say you're going to violate the public trust and do whatever you want and to heck with the budget and the guidelines."
That kind of thinking, he said, "just reinforces the need for tighter supervision."
Supervisor Harry Nickens said he has seen a pattern "for years" of county schools trying to live beyond their means.
"I have tried to convince them of the wisdom of perhaps a more narrow-based program that would allow them to maintain their infrastructure," he said. "You can't have it all. They have continually added new programs and new services at the expense of maintaining what they've already got in place.
"I don't want to throw rocks at the school system," he said, "but you can't just keep adding and adding, thinking that the money will come from somewhere."
Nickens said the dropout program was typical of that mindset.
"Why do we have to continue to say that the program has got to be full time," he said. "Did they explore all the alternatives? I see a definite pattern here."
Nickens said that by continually diverting funds from maintenance and repairs, the schools are compromising their quality.
"Sooner or later, it will impact on the classroom," he said. "It's like overextending on credit cards. You don't postpone fixing your roof so you can go out and buy a new car."
In the past, school officials have had the freedom to shift money freely, depending on where it's needed.
That meant nicking $150,000 from the bus fund in 1988 and reducing the maintenance budget by $100,000 to free up funds for the operating budget.
It was that kind of freedom that allowed them to expand the Career Center, a dropout-prevention program in the old William Byrd Junior High School in Vinton.
The program had been foundering badly in its old location, the Roanoke County Occupational School, which houses a regional program for mentally handicapped students.
Putting both programs in the same building proved to be a mistake. Parents of occupational school students said the well-being of their children - most of whom are severely mentally retarded - was threatened by the presence of students with emotional and behavioral problems.
At the same time, Career Center students - plagued by low self-esteem and poor academic records - felt further stigmatized by being sent to the occupational school, and dropped out in record numbers.
Since relocating and expanding the program, school officials say, they have not lost a single student.
Parent Debra Holdren said that while she is disturbed by the deficit, "I personally am very proud that the School Board was willing to risk conflict on the Career Center. It was very important for those kids."
But Holdren, a systems analyst for Dominion Bankshares, says she is not blind to the problems that have crept into the system in recent years.
"They've resorted to, shall we say, creative means of maintaining a quality system," said Holdren, who also is chairwoman of the East County Citizens for Education, an organization of Vinton parents and others.
One method, she said, is to free up funds for the operating budget by shifting routine maintenance into the capital-improvements budget.
"County schools have pretty much been riding a pinnacle established several years ago," she said. "Now we are starting to see, because funding is not being provided, that the schools are starting to slide on a downward trend."
Holdren said that in recent years, her children have brought home mimeographs on brown paper because the school ran out of supplies.
"At one point, they were begging paper from local companies," she said. "At the high school level they lack supplies for basic science projects sometimes. They're not purchasing new equipment. They're not maintaining their facilities.
"They have a quality school system, and it's slipping through their fingers," she said.
Holdren said she does blame the School Board for not standing up to the supervisors and demanding more money.
"The School Board tries to be very diplomatic, not ruffle any feathers," she said. "They are asked to deal with a political system in which they have no clout, no authority. In their earnest desire to avoid conflict, they have gone along with the supervisors, maybe too much."
Holdren said she and other parents see the proposal to merge the two financial departments as a "power grab" by the supervisors.
"If they're going to do that, they might as well disband the School Board," she said. "The supervisors will have ultimate and total control over the school system."
Robers terms that charge "absolutely wrong," saying that merging the departments simply would allow the county to track how money is being spent.
The arrangement, he said, is similar to the way city school finances are handled.
There, school officials plan expenses and make out purchase orders, but the city pays all school bills, issues payroll checks and monitors school finances on a daily basis.
It was a crisis similar to the county's that brought city schools under the watchful eye of the city Finance Department.
Nearly a decade ago, city schools faced an $800,000 deficit, leaving them short on their teacher payroll for July and August.
City Council appropriated the $800,000, but forced the schools to turn over most accounting functions to the city.
And while that may sound onerous, it's not nearly as bad as it could be.
Former county School Board member Richard Cullinan said the county should institute categorical funding, which would give money for specific categories. That money could not be shifted between accounts without the county's approval.
Worse still, categorical funding can take place on a monthly basis, forcing school officials to come to the county every month for the money they need.
Cullinan said he has seen a fiscal crisis in the making for years.
"We [the School Board] felt we had a good thing and we wanted to keep it that way," he said. "But there's just not enough money.
"It hurts me to see the quality go down, to see the loss of control of programs," he said. "The bottom line is, we have an outstanding school system. If the citizens want an average system, I'm sure there's funding for that."
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 9, 1990\ Clarification
Former Roanoke County School Board member Richard Cullinan said Friday that categorical funding could be used by the county Board of Supervisors to control school spending in the county. Because of a typographical error in a story Sunday, the wrong impression of Cullinan's comments was created. Cullinan does not favor categorical funding for the school system.
Memo: correction