SCHOOL BOARD MAINTAINS NEED FOR NEW FUNDS

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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 22, 1992                   TAG: 9202220150
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-7   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium
SCHOOL BOARD MAINTAINS NEED FOR NEW FUNDS
The city's School Board has reaffirmed its support of several new budget requests requiring additional money for 1992-93, including 6 percent raises for teachers and other employees and a revised salary scale.
Those two items, which alone will cost more than $328,000, are among a list of budget initiatives that board members and Superintendent Michael Wright consider "essential."
The list also includes $155,802 in new equipment requested by teachers, and $37,000 for architectural and engineering work for new art and music classrooms at Radford High School.
The new budget, which represents an estimated increase of nearly 5 percent over this year, comes while City Council is trying to get departments to cut spending by 3 percent. If council approves the school budget, the city's share of the $7.56 million spending plan would be $472,117.
In other matters at Thursday's School Board meeting, board member Chip Craig said he's still waiting for a response to his letter to State Sen. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle.
Craig said he wrote the three-page letter after Trumbo failed to show for a scheduled meeting in Richmond last week with Craig and Wright. Craig's letter details both the board's and his own positions on "certain important issues . . . that I had hoped to talk to you about."
A similar letter was sent to Del. Tommy Baker, R-Radford. Craig said he plans to ask the board to invite Baker and Trumbo to visit Radford to talk with the board.
Craig was critical of the state's method of figuring out how much it costs to educate students. He said a provision allowing an additional 12 percent in state money to go to certain localities because their teachers get better salaries than elsewhere was no more than "welfare for the rich." Most of those school systems are in Northern Virginia, Craig wrote, the ones best able to pay teachers more in the first place.
The letter also outlined Craig's opposition to a state Senate bill that he says could lead to collective bargaining for school employees. Senate Bill 893 calls for school boards to "meet and confer with employee representatives."
He also cited eight reasons to oppose elected school boards in Virginia. He suggested that proportional racial representation would suffer if boards were elected instead of appointed by the local governing body as they are now.
And, he said, organized groups "would find it far too easy to dominate the school board."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB