THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 23, 1997 TAG: 9702210008
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 59 lines
Virginia Beach City Council seems bent on hurriedly adopting a revenue-sharing plan to finance schools. A vote will come Tuesday. If the plan truly assured more efficient budgeting, improved education or fostered greater cooperation, no one could object.
But this proposal is flawed as policy and self-serving as politics. It's not so much revenue sharing as buck passing: an attempt to make the schools and public education the scapegoat for higher taxes.
Under the plan, the city would give schools a fixed 53.13 percent of six tax streams every year. Schools could request more funds if that amount proved inadequate. But - and it's a revealing but - they would be required to ask not just for more money but to request that council raise taxes.
Council is disingenuous in making this proposal. It knows that the 53 percent level of funding will prove inadequate immediately. A study by R.J. Pellicore Associates for the Virginia Beach Education Association shows that school costs rose from 47.67 percent of those same revenues in 1987 to 53.08 percent in 1995.
That trend is likely to continue, forcing the School Board to request tax increases every year - as the city has done for eight of the past 10 years. In fact, the minimalist budget the schools are proposing for next year requires 55.69 percent of the designated revenues.
Part of the problem is apparent in the school's five-year planning documents. They forecast less education money from both state and federal governments in the years ahead. Localities must make up the loss. Schools also face infrastructure needs as buildings and buses age.
Clearly, a game of political hot potato is being played. Council is reluctant to cut other city spending to make more funds available for schools, but it doesn't want to take the heat if that logic leads to poorer schools or increased taxes.
By limiting schools to a fixed percentage of revenues, council would keep the schools from encroaching on other city spending. By forcing School Board members to be the elected officials demanding yearly tax increases, council may hope to escape the ire of tax-averse voters.
But even if council can duck the blame, it can't escape its responsibility. The job of the School Board is to assess educational needs and to recommend the best possible solutions, cognizant of resource limitations. By statute it remains the job of council to set priorities, evaluate needs, estimate revenues and create a budget. A formula is an abdication of council's duty to draw up an annual budget that balances needs and resources.
The proposed revenue-sharing plan and comments by some city officials that paint school financing as a case of ``us against them'' make the political motives behind the revenue-sharing plan glaringly transparent.
But schools and city government aren't ``us'' and ``them.'' Everyone in Virginia Beach has an interest in well-run schools that are adequately funded. All parties must seek a way to finance city needs together. Instead of rushing to adopt the quick fix of revenue sharing, City Council must sit down with school officials and make hard choices.