Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 15, 1992 TAG: 9203130200
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Some people watch sitcoms for entertainment. Not me. I just watch the news during political season.
The General Assembly was lots of fun this year. Madison Marye, our redoubtable senator from Montgomery County, played hide-and-seek on the road bill with Dick Cranwell, the awesomely powerful representative from Roanoke.
First Marye would make one local road project disappear and then Cranwell and his buddies would make it reappear.
Now, after all the political slight-of-hand, Montgomery County may get two road projects built from the $443 million highway bond bill - if it's approved.
National politics has been even more fun.
I fell out of my chair and dented my desk last Friday when Patrick Buchanan called for George Bush to drop out of the presidential race. Such wonderful self-confidence . . . people other than his mother might even call it arrogance.
Even closer to home, politics has been pretty amusing - if you've been trying to figure out the fussing between the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and the School Board.
The supervisors had their socks shocked off by the size of the school budget request this year. To add to their disgruntlement, they couldn't get the budget information broken down the way they wanted . . . and across town the School Board couldn't figure out what the supervisors wanted.
Last time I looked, their offices were a couple of blocks apart, but for some reason I can't fathom the administrators couldn't just sit down together to figure out exactly what budget information the supervisors wanted and how they wanted it.
They kept sending sheets of paper back and forth, back and forth - and never getting what either board wanted.
It would all be pretty funny, except the issue is so serious.
The county can't afford to have these two boards feuding over details.
Tension is inevitable between the School Board and the supervisors at budget time, but the debate should focus on the millions of dollars requested, not on details.
The School Board, which doesn't levy taxes, has the job of deciding what the schools need and asking for money to pay for it. It hears loud and clear from parents and school employees about needs - from computers to counselors, from reading programs to raises.
The supervisors, however, have to levy the taxes to pay for the schools - and they hear loud and clear from the taxpayers at budget time and at the ballot box.
Bickering back and forth over details makes both boards short-tempered and makes a sensible dialogue over the crucial issue of school funding more difficult.
Short tempers can lead to sharp comments - and sharp comments can lead to misunderstanding and morale problems.
A supervisor's comments two weeks ago about eliminating raises for school administrators (he says he meant only Superintendent Harold Dodge and his top aides) set off a shock wave among all the school administrators, including principals, assistant principals and supervisors.
On Wednesday, the Montgomery County Principals Association fired off an outraged letter saying its members were "appalled, dismayed and disappointed by the Board of Supervisors' lack of sensitivity and understanding" of the role and demands on administrators.
Pretty tough language. It sounds like some school administrators are a little frustrated themselves - perhaps at coping with the pressures of being a principal without a raise for the past year.
None of the anger between the boards is likely to increase the number of dollars for the schools or enhance their discussion of serious funding issues facing the schools in the years ahead.
The budget shock probably could have been eased this year if the School Board had met with the supervisors earlier to warn them and explain why the schools would be asking for a 34 percent increase - up to $52.5 million.
The School Board has since voted to ask for regular meetings between the two boards' leaders to avoid such shocks and to increase the communication between the two boards. One board member even suggested inviting the supervisors into the schools to see the programs, the needs, the students whose education they are funding.
What is essential for Montgomery County - and the other counties in the valley - is that the supervisors be as committed to the quality of education as the School Board.
Despite the different pressures on them, the two boards have to work together if the county is going to maintain the quality of its schools and finance the educational changes needed to prepare students for an even more technologically complex world in the future.
Elizabeth Obenshain is editor of the New River Valley bureau of the Roanoke Times & World-News.
by CNB