THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 8, 1996 TAG: 9603080551
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
After months of waiting and worrying about cuts in a federal program that funnels millions of education dollars into South Hampton Roads schools, local educators on Thursday had reason to take heart.
It appears likely that Congress, after two partial government shutdowns and nearly six months of wrangling, will pass an education budget that buffers local school districts from threatened losses of federal impact aid.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday narrowly approved an appropriations bill that officials estimated would provide local school districts with about 95 percent of the amount of impact aid they received last year. At one point during the budget battles, some districts feared losing all of their aid.
``I think that's some of the best news we've had in weeks, quite frankly,'' said Sidney J. Duck III, an assistant superintendent in Portsmouth. ``We've just been in a holding pattern.''
Since the 1950s, impact aid has been supplied to school districts to help educate children of military families. The cash is designed to cover the loss of tax dollars, since military bases and many military families don't pay local taxes.
Local officials were left in the lurch this year because Congress and the White House had failed to agree on a budget for fiscal year 1996, which began Oct. 1. Because the budget year for local school districts begins in July, local officials had calculated their budgets based on what they received in impact aid the previous year.
Impact aid was caught up in the partisan debate over balancing the budget, and the impasse tied up the money. As a result, several local school districts took emergency measures to reduce spending just in case they didn't get the aid: They delayed maintenance, postponed purchases of school supplies and used substitutes instead of making permanent teacher replacements.
Altogether, about $14 million was at stake, including about $8.3 million in Virginia Beach, $3.7 million in Norfolk, $1.5 million in Chesapeake, $785,000 in Portsmouth and about $30,000 in Suffolk.
Of 55 school districts in Virginia that in 1995 received $30.5 million in impact aid, Virginia Beach and Norfolk ranked at the top.
In Norfolk, the impact aid for this year would provide enough to pay for 100 teachers, while in Portsmouth it's more than enough money to buy new reading and math books for every elementary child in the city, officials said.
``It's just one less unknown,'' Mary Lou Roaseau, chief financial officer for Norfolk schools, said of Congress' budget action. ``We will now be able to move forward without the same concern over whether the revenue is an issue.''
Even so, the Senate, which has proposed the same amount of impact aid as the House, still has to vote on its budget, probably next week.
And President Clinton has threatened to veto the House bill because it contains deeper cuts in other education programs than he wanted, including the Title 1 program for needy students and Goals 2000, an initiative to improve America's schools.
``We're still several steps away from seeing the check in the mail,'' said Virginia Beach schools spokesman Joe Lowenthal. by CNB