DATE: Thursday, February 27, 1997           TAG: 9702270003

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A14  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   56 lines

REVENUE SHARING A VIRGINIA BEACH FORMULA DOESN'T MAKE HARD CHOICE GO AWAY.

Virginia Beach City Council on Tuesday approved a revised plan for revenue sharing to fund public schools that promises to be inadequate in its first year.

We continue to believe revenue sharing - as it relates to school funding - is fundamentally flawed and clouds the issue of the council's statutory responsibility for budgeting. But several last-minute concessions to the School Board made the final plan more equitable than the original. Council voted not only to share selected revenues with the schools at a 53.13 rate, but also to share year-end budget overruns with schools in that proportion. That's only fair.

Council also decided to allow the school system to maintain an interest-bearing special reserve fund for one-time expenditures. The schools sorely need such a fund and will undoubtedly benefit by its creation and the interest earned on such monies.

There are other problems - philosophical and practical - with the funding formula. The major practical problem is that 53.13 percent of the city's selected revenue streams simply isn't enough to maintain a quality school district. That rate will not even fund the superintendent's proposed bare-bones budget that he presented to the School Board last week. By the time the board finishes with the superintendent's plan, the 53.13 percent promises to be even more inadequate.

That leaves City Council with three choices when it is presented with the final school budget: underfund schools, trim city expenditures to try to fund the needs of the schools or increase taxes and blame it on the schools.

We urge council to take a hard look at its priorities and to try to find ways to fund this year's school budget without raising taxes. Selected city services must remain sacrosanct - police, fire and rescue come to mind. But some of the city's wish list projects shouldn't have a higher priority than schools.

If taxes must go up this year, council should resist the urge to point fingers at the school system and bear in mind that funding good schools is the best investment Virginia Beach can make in its own future. Instead of trying to finesse these facts of life, council should be helping to sell taxpayers on the benefits of well-funded schools.

Good schools are a powerful economic development tool. Once Lake Gaston water is flowing the city may find corporations blaming mediocre schools rather than a lack of water for their reluctance to locate in the city.

Good schools help the local economy in othr ways as well. They can drive up real estate values. That helps the city by increasing the tax base, homeowners by increasing the resale value of their largest asset. And well-educated young people are less inclined to commit crime, more inclined to become productive members of society.

Right now Virginia Beach is the second largest school district in Virginia, but ranks 71st in the local per pupil contribution toward public schools. That must change if Virginia Beach is to regain its competitive edge.

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