THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 16, 1995 TAG: 9509160308
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
By merging the city and school finance departments, Virginia Beach can save money, increase accountability and allow educators to concentrate on teaching children, three Republican candidates for the General Assembly said Friday.
Dels. Frank Wagner, 21st District, and Leo C. Wardrup, 83rd District and Ed Schrock, a challenger in the 7th Senatorial District, promised to work to pass legislation that would allow such a merger and urged the City Council to support their drive.
The district ran up a $7.4 million deficit last school year, and the City Council, in a resolution approved Tuesday, suggested the merger as part of a larger plan to make sure the district never again spends more money than it has.
The council is expected to cover the deficit this fall, after the completion of a financial audit that will help explain what went wrong.
Wagner, Wardrup and Schrock said they don't need to see the results of an audit to know there are serious problems in the district. The people in charge now should be held accountable, even if they weren't at the helm when the problems occurred, the three, all former Navy men, said.
``Clearly there's a management problem in that the board hasn't set up the controls that would have prevented this from happening,'' said Wagner, who represents a district that runs through the middle of the city.
``I don't think there are any guarantees,'' he continued. ``But certainly the city has proved their ability to balance the books.''
Not everyone believes that a merger will solve the school district's problems, however.
Several School Board members strongly oppose consolidation because they believe control of the district's finances must rest with those who set the district's priorities.
If the public thinks current board members failed to control school spending well enough, then voters should kick them out of office next spring, board member Ulysses V. Spiva said this week.
Democratic candidates for the same three General Assembly seats said they don't think consolidation is the answer to the school district's problems. All three expressed different views about the direction the city and the schools should take.
It's too soon to know what real solutions are needed, said Philip A. Geib, an attorney running against Wardrup for the seat representing the city's northwestern corner.
``The School Board and (Chief Financial Officer) Mordecai L. Smith are doing their best to unravel what was done before their tenure, and I think that the next weeks will tell us exactly how to prevent this from occurring in the future,'' Geib said.
Bob Avery, Frank Wagner's challenger, said the district isn't as broken as the Republicans are suggesting. Accountability is important, said Avery, a school photographer, but the search for it shouldn't destroy a system that has worked fairly well in the past.
State Sen. Clarence A. Holland, who is defending his Bayside-Kempsville seat against Schrock, said he thinks school management problems won't go away until school districts have the ability to raise their own taxes. That way, Holland said, board members would be wholly responsible for managing the district, instead of being able to get the council to erase their mistakes.
``Gosh, who wouldn't want to run and spend whatever you want and then turn to somebody else to give you the money,'' said Holland, who also represents portions of Norfolk and Chesapeake.
Holland tried unsuccessfully in 1992 to get the rest of the General Assembly to support his idea.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOLS BUDGET VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOL BOARD by CNB