Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240091
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MELISSA DeVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The hardest blow comes from Allen's elimination of funding for school maintenance. Typically, smaller school systems with less local money receive more dollars per pupil for maintenance than their wealthier counterparts.
Also, Allen has increased funding for a basic "block grant" funds, but he has done that with dollars taken from programs such as drop-out prevention, English as a Second Language and enrollment loss supplements. The new method, Allen asserts, would allow localities to choose how to spend their money.
"The [maintenance fund and drop-out prevention] are major losses for us," said Terry Arbogast, superintendent of the 1,845-student Floyd County School System. "We are very much concerned and we're trying to see if it really can't be restored."
Between the two programs, Arbogast said the school system would lose $52,561.
"You start adding the numbers together, and it adds up to a lot of money," he said. "Even $30,000 is absolutely very important in a smaller school system because you can't continue to shift monies around like the larger systems can do."
In Giles County, Superintendent Robert McCracken said the elimination of an enrollment fund - designed to supplement rural school budgets in times of decreasing enrollment - is the biggest loss for his school system. Schools receive state funding based on the number of pupils enrolled, so the supplement cushions the schools' financial distress as enrollment dwindles.
"The idea [in the enrollment fund] is to give some help for smaller schools," McCracken said Monday. The state had already budgeted this money for both this year and next year, "but Allen amended the funding for enrollment loss, and now there is no money."
Pulaski County, which is also losing pupils, stands to lose $38,214 from its enrollment loss supplement. Montgomery, Floyd and Radford - all of which are growing - were not affected by this supplement.
Giles and Radford weren't affected by cuts to the dropout prevention program because their low dropout rates, below the state's 3.4 percent average, make them ineligible.
Likewise, Giles County did not apply for funding for English as a Second Language, as it has no foreign-speaking students this year.
McCracken said he supported Allen's initiative to give localities decision-making power under the revised "block grants," but added that the state is still not giving enough money to support needed programs.
"That's one of the things that probably bothers me about the whole funding issue," McCracken said. "The general perception is [that localities] don't do their share, but Giles County certainly does. It's the state funds that aren't being matched with the localities."
While Montgomery County is the New River Valley's largest school system with more than 8,800 students, it was not immune from Allen's cuts. The county lost a combined $188,871 through cuts in English as a Second Language, drop-out prevention and maintenance.
"We got somewhat more for salary supplements, but [the state has] held everything else at zero increase," said Dan Morris, Montgomery County's school finance director. "It's real hard when you go into a second year of a biennium and they say, in effect, 'There is no inflation.' To go two years flat is incredible - you just can't do that."
The state's new method of adding more money to the "block grants" and taking away pinpointed funds, thus giving localities the choice in targeting funds, is misleading, Morris noted.
"To us, we're just losing that money," Morris said. The state "is going to pay us $19,00 for [block grants] but it's replacing the two [funds] that are lost. We're not making any headway. They say they're not putting any requirements on us, but the net effect is they're giving us less money."
by CNB