ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997 TAG: 9704230079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON THE ROANOKE TIMES
Almost all of the 300 people present said the Franklin County schools should get a requested $2.4 million budget increase.
The Franklin County school system has been on the move for several years.
More county students are going to college. A new technology center - the first of its kind in the state - is being built for eighth- and ninth-grade students.
But Superintendent Len Gereau and the School Board want to push the system to higher levels. They've asked for a $2.4 million budget increase next year.
The Board of Supervisors, which has a fiscally conservative majority, has said enough is enough, however.
County Administrator Macon Sammons has presented a $57.5 million 1997-98 budget proposal that gives the schools about $1million more. The budget does not include a tax increase, and Sammons has recommended that it be balanced using $1.7 million of the county's $10 million in reserve funds.
Sammons, tired of the year-in, year-out budget battle with the school administration, started a public hearing on the budget Tuesday night with a call for common sense and recognition that the schools won't face a crisis if the School Board's entire request isn't funded.
The county has increased its support by 145 percent in the past nine years, he said.
But his sentiments fell on mostly deaf ears in the Franklin County High School auditorium.
Of the 300 or so who attended the hearing, about 290 raised their hands in support of the full School Board budget request. They clapped resoundingly time after time when speakers hammered home key points.
Bill Keller, an insurance agent from Boones Mill who has two children in the schools, got a raucous response when he focused on Sammons' statement about the 145 percent funding increase.
"Well, we went from hardly anything to barely enough," Keller said of the county's history of supporting its schools.
Keller and others pointed out that the county still ranks among the lowest in the state in spending per pupil.
Demas Boudreaux, the junior class president at Franklin County High School, asked the supervisors to look around and assess the condition of the auditorium.
"People come and sit in these hard seats, and the first thing they think about is y'all," he said, drawing laughs from the crowd.
One man, though, spoke a different view.
Lester Thompson of Ferrum carried a copy of Gereau's contract to the podium.
He noted a number of Gereau's perks and said the schools might be in better shape if the superintendent didn't receive more than $100,000 a year in salary and benefits.
"All the money is dumped in one spot," he said. "One man is getting it all."
Several people in the audience heckled Thompson.
"What does this have to do with the budget?" one woman shouted.
The supervisors will meet next Wednesday to approve the 1997-98 budget.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB