Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 12, 1992 TAG: 9203120258
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
The hearing, at Auburn High School in Riner starting at 7:30 p.m. next Thursday, still may draw people who are upset about the big slice the Board of Supervisors knifed from the School Board's proposed budget.
Parents, School Board members and school employees have said they are unhappy with the supervisors, but agreed there's little they can do but live with the board's decision.
"Obviously we're disappointed," said Kimberle Badinelli of Blacksburg, president of the county council of PTAs. "It was a [school] budget designed to put a good quality educational program into our county."
Any protests now would be almost futile, though, because the supervisors have advertised only a 2-cent increase in the real estate tax rate for next year. That leaves them little room, if any, to make increases in the county's budget. The board can lower but not increase an advertised tax rate.
The supervisors' proposed real estate tax increase to 72 cents on each $100 of assessed value would mean a $16 increase in the annual tax on an $80,000 home.
But the supervisors have indicated they don't want to raise taxes next year. If taxes are not increased, the board will have to make more cuts in next year's budget or look for other ways to make up an anticipated $510,000 deficit.
The supervisors have sought to hold the line on county spending. While the proposed budget is 7 percent higher than this year's budget, it is actually $3.3 million less than the county estimates it will spend this year.
The school budget represents, by far, the largest portion of the county budget pie. The proposed county budget calls for spending $61.5 million. Of this, $41.3 million or 67 percent is for the operation of the schools. Total education outlays amount to more than that.
The development of the school budget this year has at times strained the relationship between the supervisors and the School Board.
The School Board - working without spending guidelines from the supervisors, ignoring the weakened economy and focusing on what it believes are the school system's needs - originally sent the supervisors a budget of $52.5 million for next year. That would have been a one-third increase in the current year's school budget requiring an additional $12.4 million in local money.
However, the smaller school budget the supervisors proposed increases school funding next year by roughly $2 million, providing new money only to open the new Falling Branch Elementary School and to give a 4.5 percent raise to all school employees - the same raise other county employees will get.
The supervisors rejected a long list of new spending initiatives by the School Board. They cut money to equip each of the county's 700 classrooms with a computer, to provide substantially larger raises for school employees and more money for health insurance for their families and to start up new elementary music and language programs.
Nevertheless, Supervisor Larry Linkous of Blacksburg said he believes every member of the Board of Supervisors supports education. But he said the public can't afford a tax increase this year.
"It's not good leadership to raise taxes in a failing economy," Linkous said.
The new programs proposed by the School Board are a good long-range plan, but providing money for raises was about all the supervisors could do extra this year, Linkous said.
School Board Member Don Lacy of Blacksburg said he was discouraged by the supervisors' decision to cut all of the School Board's new initiatives. Five or six of them, which are aimed at reducing drop-out rates and improving reading scores, were not expensive and would have returned money to the county, he said.
Lacy also regretted the supervisors' rejection of the classroom computers and the elementary language programs. There was nothing in the School Board's budget proposal that was not defensible as sound educational policy, he said.
Teachers have said they would like their salary scale made more equitable, but School Board members say if they do that it won't be possible to give every teacher a 4.5 percent raise.
The subject of raises has been controversial. The School Board originally asked for money to give much bigger raises to employees, including more than 15 percent increases to teachers and administrators.
The county principals' association sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors Wednesday - and a copy to the Current (see box) - expressing its "grave concern" about news reports of the supervisors' attitudes toward raises for administrators.
The letter criticized Supervisor Linkous for remarks he made about raises for school administrators at a Feb. 29 board meeting, but Linkous responded that his remarks were mispresented and misunderstood.
Linkous said Wednesday he suggested that if any school employees have to do without raises next year, it should be the highest paid administrators in the school system's central office in Christiansburg.
Linkous said he supports raises for principals. In fact, he believes they should be put on a salary scale and paid more fairly.
Some principals who have been in the system for several years are being paid less than new principals who have been hired from outside the system, he said.
by CNB