School E-mail April 18, 1997

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Subj: Budget, Buildings & Elections
Date: 97-04-18 14:12:22 EDT
From: James.C.Klagge@bev.net (James C. Klagge)
To: school issues list@vt.edu

Dear friends,

Last week the Board of Supervisors settled on a budget and tax rate for the county. Although there was only a modest tax increase of 2 cents, the schools received a sizable increase in county funds due to the fact that the county allocated to us much of the new money that will come in from economic growth. Whereas last year we got only $70,000 in new money from the county (even with a 1 cent tax increase), this year we got over $1.5 million in new money from the county. The following is a summary of the budget:

The budget passed has only one change from the proposal by the School Board. The Board of Supervisors cut 50% of the new 18.9 classroom FTE's (= $380,363). The budget proposal listed 6.5 Reading Teachers, 18.9 Classroom Teachers, 2.0 Special Education Teachers, 1.0 Gifted Teacher and 7 mobile classrooms. From this, we needed to cut either 2.4 FTE's or the equivalent $ value in teachers and mobile units to balance the budget. The Board of Supervisors focused only on the 18.9 classroom and funded 50% of those positions. Funding for all other positions, initiatives and salary (3% average increase) remains.

This provides the school division with a budget of:
Total Budget $52,925,772
Total Increase $3,276,877
Percent Increase 6.60%
New State Funds $1,675,199
New County Funds $1,588,178
New Federal/Other Funds $13,500

The tax rate was raised 2 cents and there are some small reserves in the county budget for development, debt service, capital and the landfill.

It is hard to tell exactly why things went so much better this year than last year. The key was not just the tax increase, which only brings in about $440,000 in new money, but the willingness to give us a large share of new revenues from economic growth. I think the new county administrator and the Board chair were impressed that we had submitted a budget request that was already reduced from what we wanted, rather than a budget that read like a wish-list, as last year's did.

Perhaps you read in the paper that the school board voted to go forward with building a new HS in Shawsville/Elliston first, and then press for the work on BMS once that is initiated. Hopkins and I voted against this, but it passed 5-2. The supervisors are planning to hire a "value engineer" to assess and oversee all the new building projects. We have been somewhat skeptical of this, since we see our administration as having served this function quite effectively. Falling Branch and Kipps schools both came in efficiently and under budget. However we are not opposed to the value engineer. If the supervisors taking the idea of value engineering seriously enough, they might discover that it would be more economical to build a new BMS than it is to renovate and expand the current one. We'll just have to wait and see where they go with that.

As you may know, supervisor and school board seats are up for election this fall in districts A, C & D. Jim Moore is retiring as supervisor in A (parts of Blacksburg, and Mt. Tabor), and Annette Perkins, SB rep. and chair, has not made any announcement about her plans. Henry Jablonski is retiring as supervisor in D (Riner and parts of Christiansburg), and Barry Worth, SB rep., has announced he will seek the Republican nomination for supervisor. Joe Stewart (a Republican) will seek reelection as supervisor in C (Shawsville, Elliston, and parts of Christiansburg), and Mary Beth Dunkerberger, SB rep., has not announced her plans. Candidates for supervisor generally seek nomination through a party, though they can also run as non-partisan independents. Candidates for school board have to run as non-partisan independents. Non-partisan independents can get on the ballot for either supervisor or school board races by gathering a few hundred signatures from registered voters in their district by early summer. Specific details are available through the Voter Registrars office (382-5741). It is important that we have good candidates for all these offices and I encourage you to consider running, or to think about encouraging others to run. The early date for getting on the ballot means that even though the elections don't happen until November, the choices are set MUCH sooner.

-Jim Klagge.

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