MONTGOMERY CITIZENS TO GET SCHOOL BUDGET SAY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 28, 1992                   TAG: 9201280124
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
MONTGOMERY CITIZENS TO GET SCHOOL BUDGET SAY
The public will have its say tonight on the Montgomery County School Board's proposed budget for next year.
The board will hold a public hearing at 7:30 p.m. at the Christiansburg High School auditorium.
The budget, which the board approved for hearing by an 8-1 vote last week, calls for spending $52.3 million next year. The current year's budget is $39.4 million.
The budget will require $11.5 million in funding by local taxpayers on top of the $18.3 million in local funding in the current year's budget.
Financing the full School Board request almost certainly would require local tax increases because the county is expecting to raise only an additional $550,000 next year if tax rates are left at their current levels.
A recent study by the University of Virginia Center for Public Service shows that Montgomery County ranks 31st among Virginia counties in the amount of property tax paid by an average homeowner. A typical homeowner in Montgomery County paid $599 in taxes in 1991 compared with $1,030 in Roanoke County, $488 in Pulaski, $501 in Bedford and $2,629 in Fairfax.
A tax increase may be needed simply to give Montgomery's schools the same support they were given this year. Superintendent Harold Dodge has estimated it will cost roughly $1 million to stay even with rising expenses.
The county will have to spend an additional $560,000 next year to open the new Falling Branch Elementary School, which is under construction in Christiansburg.
Most of the increases in the proposed budget, however, come from a change in the School Board's philosophy.
In the past the board has considered the state of the economy when planning its budgets. But this year, the board decided to ask for what it feels is needed to provide a first-rate education and to leave it up to the Board of Supervisors to decide whether the county can afford to pay for it.
The biggest part of the increase, $4.9 million, would go for pay raises.
The budget would move teachers onto a new salary scale, giving them an average raise of 15.24 percent. Most school employees did not get raises this year.
Even with the proposed raises, which would bring the average teacher's annual salary to $31,556, Montgomery teachers still would be almost $4,000 behind the average teacher salary statewide of $35,360.
The next biggest item added to the budget would be $3.04 million to equip the county's 700 classrooms with computers and software.
Other major spending increases would be: $1 million for 24 new teachers; $720,000 for 15 new school buses; and $370,000 to pay for half of the premiums for health insurance for the families of school employees.
New money would also go toward teaching supplies, dropout prevention, field trips, elementary guidance counselors, elementary art and music teachers and high school band uniform replacement.
The School Board must send its budget to the Board of Supervisors by Feb. 3.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB