Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 21, 1994 TAG: 9404210208
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY and MARA LEE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Bartlett told the School Board of his plan - the latest twist in a long-running dispute over faulty student membership estimates - in a closed-door session late Tuesday. He was to have told county officials Wednesday.
"I have not been informed of that," supervisors Chairman Larry Linkous said.
"It's news to me," said Jeff Lunsford, Montgomery's fiscal management director. "I don't really have any comment."
Two weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors set tax rates for the upcoming $70.6 million budget based on the School Board's agreeing to return $935,000 to the county before June 30.
Of that amount, the schools were already set to give back $420,000 in a routine budget adjustment process known as a "reversion." Reversions usually amount to less than 1 percent of the school budget and give financial planners a method to fine-tune their spending plans and encouraging savings.
But the supervisors wanted the School Board to cough up an extra $515,000 to make up for an incorrect estimate of the average daily membership in the school division.
Budget planners use the figure to compute state revenue; when the figure is off, as it was in this case, the state will not pay up and the burden falls on the county.
To encourage the reversion, the supervisors had put aside $420,000 in a special account. If school officials had returned $935,000 this spring, the county would have given them the $420,000 after July 1, making for a net giveback of $515,000.
Bartlett said he could not squeeze an extra $515,000 out of the school budget with fewer than three months to go.
Though it involves a large sum, the effect of Bartlett's decision probably can be absorbed by some budget maneuvering.
Lunsford said the Board of Supervisors could move the $420,000 from the special account to the general fund to help preserve the county's "fund balance."
School Board members said at Tuesday night's meeting that paying nearly $1 million to get $400,000 was not profitable.
Knowing he'll have to do without the reversion after July 1, Bartlett has decided to spend as much as possible before then.
He described the school's plan as "prespending to protect instruction."
School Board Vice Chairman Bob Goncz said the board didn't vote on the decision. It's the board's position that the superintendent has the discretion to spend whatever money is appropriated, Goncz said.
"They've given me a spending plan - my job is to make it work," Bartlett said.
Bartlett said that using the $420,000 this year would cushion the blow of next year's cut. He said he could not guarantee he would dip into that money, but that the likelihood was high.
The supervisors never asked if cutting nearly $1 million was possible, he said. "Had they asked me before they did it, I would've been perfectly willing to tell them we couldn't do that."
Bartlett inherited the average daily membership dispute from his predecessor, Harold Dodge, who last month rejected blame for an estimate that was off by 280 students.
Bartlett has said that the supervisors chose to use an inflated figure last year in order to avoid a tax increase.
A summary that Linkous released in late March showed that county officials did use the figure to avoid a tax increase, but did so after questioning Dodge repeatedly and with the understanding that if it was wrong, school officials would have to reduce spending.
In other business, the School Board voted 5-4 to accept the line-item cuts the supervisors suggested, bringing the school budget total to $45.3 million. The supervisors suggested the board cut the employees' raise from 3 percent to 2.5 percent and cut the homework hot line, computer improvements, curriculum guides and audit, and a study of the history of education in Montgomery County.
by CNB