THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 24, 1996 TAG: 9604240402
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
Last week, the City Council heard from several hundred residents who want the city to spend more money. Now, the council members want to hear from anyone who wants them to spend less.
The city manager had proposed increasing the tax rate by 3.2 cents, but the superintendent of schools said Tuesday that he needs the council to fully fund the School Board's proposed budget - which would require a tax rate increase of 12 cents.
Giles G. Dodd, acting finance director for the school system, suggested $7.5 million in savings that would protect existing school programs and reduce the tax increase to a more-manageable 7.4 cents.
``We need to hear from the public,'' Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf said during a council work session Tuesday afternoon. ``If folks say `yes, we'd like to support that kind of tax commitment,' we'll have a better idea (of what to do).''
The property tax rate in Virginia Beach is $1.189 per $100 of assessed valuation, meaning that the owner of a $100,000 house paid $1,189 in taxes this year. A 12-cent increase would require that homeowner to pay $1,309 next year; a 7.4-cent rate increase would push taxes to $1,263 on the same house.
The council did not specify how it wanted to get citizens' opinions, although it has set a public hearing on the budget for May 9, 2 p.m., in the City Council chambers.
The council scheduled another workshop with school officials for Thursday, beginning at 9 a.m. to run about 4 hours. It will hold workshops on Tuesday and on May 9.
The council is expected to approve the budget May 14.
Superintendent Timothy R. Jenney told the council that if he received the full 12-cent tax rate increase - which translates to a budget of just under $401 million for next year - he was fairly certain the schools wouldn't need another tax increase for several years.
``I can safely say, speaking on behalf of the administration,'' Jenney said, ``if we have a sizeable increase today, we would not be back to you for a sizeable increase in the future.''
Jenney and several other top administrators said the school system needed $43 million more next year than this year, because of a $5 million cut in federal funding and $22.8 million in either unbudgeted or underbudgeted expenses. The school system would need an additional $5.3 million to handle new students moving into the school system and $14.4 million to give teachers raises of 5 percent.
Associate Superintendent Donald A. Peccia told the council that the current budget, among other things, did not include funding for 200 people on the school system's payroll or for rent of the Celebration Station building that is housing the displaced Princess Anne High School; and underestimated the cost of heating and lighting school buildings by $2.5 million.
Jenney promised that there were no such problems in the proposed budget, which, if fully funded, would put the school system ``on the road to recovery.'' He said he and his staff are committed to ``accountability and productivity'' in financing and operating the system's schools.
Jenney's predecessor, Sidney L. Faucette, oversaw a school system that ended its last fiscal year with a $12.1 million deficit. Several recent budgets included programs that had never been properly approved and were not properly funded, Jenney and other administrators said Tuesday.
Dodd said he could make $7.5 million in cuts to the proposed School Board budget without dramatically hurting programs, by replacing drivers education and in-school suspension teachers with lower-paid para professionals, and by reducing the proposed pay increase for teachers from 5 percent to 3.3 percent.
He said he could also make up $2.3 million without any cuts in service thanks to a recent change in state law pertaining to teachers' life insurance.
``From our extensive review, we are convinced that the above options are about all that could be done without reducing staff or making serious cuts that would affect instructional programs,'' Dodd said.
City Manager James K. Spore, in the proposed budget he presented to the council last month, suggested increasing school funding by $27 million to make up for past problems and federal cuts. His budget would not allow for any expanded services and would hold teachers to a 3 percent salary increase.
Spore and E. Dean Block, director of management services for the city, said the city has worked much better with the school system this year than when Faucette was in charge. They have a lot more faith in the numbers now, Spore and Block said, but they still think there is room to cut in the School Board's proposed budget.
``We appreciate specific changes that Dr. Jenney set forward, although they do not quite go far enough in achieving a fiscally feasible budget,'' Block said Tuesday. ``The city manager has recommended a budget that increases the local contribution to schools by the largest amount in the city's history and we believe that that is as much as we should ask the taxpayers to absorb.''
If the council chooses not to fully fund the school system's budget, the School Board would have to decide where it will make cuts.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH BUDGET by CNB