Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990 TAG: 9003092215
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Elementary textbook purchases are a large chunk of the budget, totaling nearly $500,000. That's an increase of more than $341,000 over this year, or 220 percent.
School officials said the large increase was expected because textbooks are required to be updated every six years and the board put off purchasing them a year ago.
Overall, the non-salary budget provides funding for maintenance, transportation, fuel and heating, classroom supplies, textbooks and other operating costs.
It does not include money for teacher pay raises or support staff salaries. That portion of the budget will be released next week.
Superintendent Bayes Wilson said, however, that the board likely will meet the 5 percent salary increase for teachers mandated by the state.
That was his only direct mention of teacher pay raises at Thursday's meeting, which was attended by dozens of county teachers.
The teachers were there to protest a PTA request to trim teacher pay raises to 4 percent to help fund additional non-salary budget items.
But the PTA had backed down from the request, yielding this week to pressure from teachers and parents who said teachers shouldn't be asked to subsidize the non-salary budget.
Mary Noon, president of the Roanoke County Council of PTAs, said nothing about the salary-cut proposal in her address to the board Thursday.
"I am here to voice our concerns," she said on behalf of the PTA council. "We say just this and only this: We support full-funding of the 1990-91 non-salary budget."
By full funding, Noon explained that the PTA council means a 29 percent increase over this year's non-salary budget, rather than the 12.5 percent proposed.
Wilson said that a 29 percent increase works out to be a $1.8 million jump over the current budget and would be impossible for the county to fund.
Still, Noon emphasized the importance of the non-salary budget needs and urged the board to consider ways to find additional money to pay for them.
Teachers were relieved that Noon did not call on the board to cut their salary increase, but they still issued a warning to the board about their position.
"We have made many sacrifices, but we refuse to become the sacrifice. We believe that we are a vital part of the total school program," said Shelby Thomason, president of the Roanoke County Education Association. "We support a realistic budget - one not balanced on the backs of our educational staff."
The clash over the salary-cut proposal came to a head after a meeting of the PTA council Monday at Northside High School.
At the meeting, which was attended by two School Board members, the PTA council announced that it planned to ask the board for the salary reduction. That cut would total an average of about $200 per year per teacher.
The plan angered teachers and many parents, who flooded Noon and other PTA council representatives with calls in protest of the proposed request.
In other business Thursday, the board reviewed its capital improvements plan - projections of $7 million over the next three years for asbestos removal and roof repairs at several schools and building projects at Northside High School, William Byrd High School, Green Valley Elementary School and Cave Spring Elementary School.
The plan also included 10-year projections of more than $15 million for additional asbestos removal and the possible building of new schools in Glenvar, Bonsack and Cave Spring.
Wilson said the plans are subject to change depending on the outcome of the proposed consolidation between Roanoke and Roanoke County.
Money to finance the projects would come from the Virginia Public School Authority, the state Literary Fund or a county bond issue, he said.
by CNB