THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 19, 1995 TAG: 9505180285
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
They got down to business at the School Board meeting Tuesday.
Maybe the resignation of Superintendent Sidney L. Faucette earlier that day removed the prime bone of contention among board members. Or maybe his impending departure - and the budget confusion he bequeaths - just per-suad-ed them that they'd better (as board member Van Spiva once suggested) get their act together.
Whatever the reason, the atmosphere in the boardroom was a signal improvement. Two weeks ago, the School Board Eleven needed rugby shirts and a referee on the dais. This week, they sounded more like a team with at least one common goal: a school budget they and the rest of us can com-pre-hend.
What kind of budget is that? For starters, it's a school budget that:
Isn't pinched for tires and toilet paper well before the school year's end.
Tracks continuously where every penny originates and where every penny goes.
Pleasantly surprises everybody when yearly ``maybe money'' (imprecise amounts from federal grants or state sales tax or impact aid) comes in on the high side - instead of causing panic because it won't cover items already budgeted.
Doesn't leave a parent pointing out to the board that despite $46,480 budgeted for the Summer Band and Strings Program, students suddenly must pay tuition. ``What,'' he asked, ``became of this money?''
Doesn't transfer $12,055,958 from 243 line-item accounts that presumably were over-budgeted (one of them by as much as $835,674) to 215 accounts that presumably were underbudgeted (one of them by more than $1 million). How do you have that much money sitting in the wrong places?
When you have a school administration that shows, as Board Member Robert Hall put it Tuesday night, ``wanton disregard'' for line-item budgeting.
Lucky for us, said Dr. Spiva, the surplus was there - ``but why was it there?''
Well, in large part because the School Board waited until mid-May 1995 to demand details about a budget year that began July 1, 1994, and was awry from the start.
Lucky for us, only the furniture can sit through a school year without learning some-thing.
Dissatisfied with the projected costs of expanding a pilot program citywide next year, Board Member Elsie Barnes noted, ``That's how we got in trouble: We've been approving programs without knowing how much they'll cost.''
Chief Financial Officer Mordecai Smith nodded emphatically, almost involuntarily.
Board Member Linn Felt, who had sponsored the expansion, asked school officials to get back to the board with more detail on the budget impact and implementation schedule.
It's a start. by CNB