Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 2, 1993 TAG: 9304020241
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
BOARD GETS $175,600 MANDATE
The School Board got a tough homework assignment Thursday: They have until next Tuesday to figure out how to lop nearly $175,600 out of next year's proposed $7.6 million budget while salvaging minimal raises for teachers and other school employees.The board had wanted to give teachers 3 percent pay increases sweetened by another 1 percent through salary scale adjustments. Other employees were to get 4 percent raises. In addition, the board planned nearly $101,000 in capital improvements.
Now, much of the proposed spending plan is starting to look like wishful thinking. At the very least, the amended teachers' salary scale adjustment appears doomed, and raises likely will be in the 1.75-percent range, the minimum under state mandate.
Superintendent Michael Wright, who got revenue figures from the city earlier in the day, said, "What we're down to is choosing between things and people."
Wright said City Manager Robert Asbury told him City Council planned to include just over $4 million for schools in its 1993-94 budget, designating just $88,245 for capital improvements and the restfor school operations. After crunching figures all day, Wright offered board members a list of possible items to cut, including 1 percent or more from the salary increases.
"I don't like any of 'em," Wright told the board. His list of suggestions also included cuts in teacher aide salary upgrades, staff development expenses, new computers for mathematics classes, expansion of computerized library resources and a new floor for the Armory gymnasium.
In one case, it appeared that City Council already beat Wright to the punch by cutting $12,600 from the board's capital improvements request. That figure was identical to the amount the board wanted to spend to install intercoms in the city's two elementary schools. Wright put the item on his list as well.
Board Chairman John McPhail asked his colleagues to consider Wright's list over the next few days and to formally offer their own suggestions at a special meeting at 8 p.m. Tuesday, at which the 1993-94 budget will be the only agenda item.
"Frankly, I don't know where else to go," he said. McPhail said he wanted the entire board on hand to approve the budget. Board member Chip Craig could not attend Thursday's meeting.
Among major expenditures over which the board has little or no control are increases in annual health insurance costs totaling nearly $85,000 next year and a mandatory $31,925 to begin complying with the Americans for Disabilities Act. However, board members seemed to have little stomach for cutting anything else out of the proposal.
At Thursday's session, board members and Wright wielded sharp pencils and pocket calculators as they considered various ways to match revenues and expenditures.
Part of the problem, Wright told the board, was a drop of almost $103,000 in state revenues. To boost state aid in the face of declining enrollments, Radford has welcomed 150 tuition students this year, many of them from Pulaski County. Wright estimated a similar number while planning next year's budget.
Teachers, meanwhile, are hoping for the best. "I hope they choose people," Radford Education Association President Diane Mullis said, referring to Wright's statement during the meeting. She said City Council should have funded the board's budget proposal, which she said had already been "skinned down to bare bones."