Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 20, 1992 TAG: 9202200237
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
SCHOOL BOARD WARY OF CUTS IN '92-'93 BUDGET PROPOSAL
A request from the county administrator for more information about next year's Montgomery County school budget was debated warily around the table by School Board members Tuesday night.The board wanted to be careful that in answering County Administrator Betty Thomas' questions that it wasn't suggesting cuts in its proposed $52.3 million budget for next year.
"If in any way, shape or form we send a message that we are changing our budget without a vote, I could not agree to that," School Board Chairman Robert Goncz told his fellow board members.
Last week, Thomas was asked by county supervisors to analyze the school budget to see where cuts could be made. The proposed spending plan - which accounts for three-fourths of the total county budget - is 33 percent higher than the current year's and would require $12.2 million more from the county's general fund.
Supervisors have been dismayed and even angered that the School Board would ask for so much more, considering the tight economic times. But the School Board has said it needs to get what it believes are the school system's needs into the public arena for debate.
Thomas' intent in requesting the information from School Superintendent Harold Dodge was not to ask the School Board to cut its budget, she said. She simply needed more information from the board about its budget than it had provided so far, she said.
The School Board has proposed a raise for all school employees, including an average 15.24 percent increase for teachers. Most school employees did not get raises this year.
The next biggest new item in the school budget is $3.04 million to equip the county's 700 classrooms with computers.
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 uniforms.
Thomas sent a budget worksheet to Dodge asking that information be provided in a different format from the one used by Montgomery County's and other school systems around the state. Dodge told the board it would take four employees three weeks to provide Thomas with what she had requested.
Thomas - in an indication that the supervisors don't intend to go far with the School Board's request - asked Dodge to send her figures on what this year's school budget would be without any of the new programs proposed by the School Board but including money to open the new Falling Branch Elementary School in Christiansburg and to give employees a 4.5 percent raise. Thomas proposed a 4.5 percent raise for other county employees.
It's fine for the School Board to clarify its budget for the Board of Supervisors, but it's not proper for the supervisors to ask the School Board for a modified budget at this point, said School Board Member Daniel Schneck.
Under state law, the School Board is responsible for developing a budget that meets the county's educational needs and the Board of Supervisors is responsible for deciding how much of that budget it is willing to pay for.
If the School Board is forced to make any cuts in the budget, board member Mike Sowder said he would want comments from the community on what those cuts should be.
Dodge suggested the board provide Thomas the information she had requested including a line-item budget and that he not be directed to fill out the budget worksheet she had asked for. The board agreed.
But at School Board member Roy Vickers' suggestion, Dodge will also will send Thomas a computerized accounting sheet that was used in preparing the budget. This would help her with her own analysis.