Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 26, 1994 TAG: 9403260107
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"If we can find no other way to balance the budget, I think that's a reasonable thing to ask for," Chairman Larry Linkous said.
School Superintendent Herman Bartlett, on the other hand, doesn't think the school budget should suffer for what he says was a mistake made by the county staff.
"We've made a whale of a case that they're having trouble with," he said.
What started out as a footnote in the budget draft last month has evolved into a finger-pointing match, with both sides insisting their version of events is correct.
Linkous released a synopsis Friday that backs up the staff's version of how the Board of Supervisors last year approved the 1993-94 school budget using an estimate of average daily attendance in the schools that is off by 280 students. That budget year ends June 30.
His synopsis shows the Board of Supervisors agreed to use the flawed estimate a year ago rather than cut the school budget further, raise taxes or tap into reserves. The board also agreed to reduce school spending if the estimate was wrong, according to the synopsis.
Linkous said the statement is his opinion and does not represent an official board position. The supervisors will take the matter up at their 7 p.m. meeting Monday at the county courthouse.
The state government uses the student attendance figures to compute its share of local school budgets. When the estimate is off, the state will not pay the difference. The county then must either cover that amount or seek its return from the School Board.
In this case, funding for 280 students equated to $793,000. The county's share of that is $280,000, an amount the Board of Supervisors cannot take back. The balance is $515,000.
The issue is critical to the 1994-95 budget that is under consideration. From the schools' perspective, the current budget is the building block for the next one. So, school officials have built their request with that $793,000 included as part of the base.
County officials, facing their first tax increase in three years, are using a base school budget that excludes the $793,000 and certain other money. That is the reason county officials say the School Board is seeking a 15 percent increase in local tax money, while school officials say they are asking for 6 percent more.
The school system accounts for slightly more than two-thirds of county spending.
County staff members said last week they used a figure of 9,030 students to compute state revenue only after informing former school Superintendent Harold Dodge three times in memos, the last of which they said he never answered. Dodge this week rejected blame for the mistaken estimate and said he had consistently used lower estimates of average daily attendance during his five-year tenure.
Bartlett would not comment on Linkous' Friday statement because he had not read it.
He repeated his assertion, however, that county budget planners purposely used the higher estimate of students because it helped the Board of Supervisors avoid a tax increase last spring. The budget that Dodge and his staff sent to the county last year included the lower average daily attendance estimate of 8,731, he said.
"They changed it for some reason," Bartlett said. "Would you change somebody's figures that made nearly a million dollars' difference if you didn't know [the reason] ?"
by CNB