It Ain't Peanuts

It Ain’t Peanuts

Crafting a school budget is a painstaking process that easily lasts six months. Generally, the period from January through March is the time when the most intense budget action takes place. This year is no exception. In fact, the action this year is more intense than ever.

The budget process that Roanoke County Schools continue to evolve is increasingly open and inclusive. In recent years, Penny Hodge, Assistant Superintendent of Finance along with her staff have made a point to keep employees informed of the process through timely employee news memos posted on our First Class email system. David Atkins, Budget Assistant, has created a fine Budget space on the county web site.

New for the 2008-2009 budget season was the invitation to all county employees to present their budget needs before the school board. Employees and school groups were invited to develop specific budget proposals and submit them in advance to Mrs. Hodge. Proposals presented were intended for new budget impact items only. Many individuals, groups like RCEA, and internal central office departments took the time to assess their needs and submitted detailed proposals for the school board to consider.

Proposals were due in mid-December and each person or group was given the opportunity to speak before the board regarding their proposal at a special budget session on January 2. That meeting was an amazing example of transparent government.

If you open the link (warning: this is a large pdf file and takes a while to load), you will discover that there were 56 separate requests for new money in the 2008-2009 school budget. The RCEA took the prize for submitting the largest proposal. I suppose that’s understandable since we proposed a scale adjustment to bring the middle steps on the scale closer to the mid point of salary on the scale* as well as a 4% across the board salary increase for teachers. The total estimated impact for our proposal is about $3.1 million new dollars. All told, there were requests for $7,043,138 in new projects and support.

At the January 10 school board meeting, the board entered into another budget session. In this session, the school board reviewed the proposals and recommendations of the Central Office staff regarding those proposals. Each item was addressed again and a central office staff member was called to speak to the central office recommendation. Of the 56 original proposals, alternate source funding was found for 12 of them. In some cases these alternate sources were found using current discretionary funds ($175,000 for formative assessment program/$50,000 for data analysis program, market adjustment for middle and high school assistant principals). In other cases, creative staffing was suggested to achieve the intent of the original proposals (testing coordinators in high schools).

The remaining 44 items were prioritized. Some, like an additional HVAC technician and roof replacements among others, were considered “Must Do” items. Some, like a new email system and a new social worker, were determined by staff to be “Should Do” items. A Math specialist and 2 gifted resource teachers were placed on the “Like to Do” list along with new art and health teacher positions for elementary. Several pay issues were directed to the “Market Adjustment Pay Plan.” Money for bus drivers, building operators, bookkeepers, and instructional assistants will all be processed through that plan. More research by us will need to be done to determine exactly what this “Market Adjustment Pay Plan” category is. The RCEA salary proposal was sent to the RCPS salary committee for review and action. The salary committee will meet on February 14 and the RCEA has several representatives on it along with representatives from the school board and other county employee classifications. 18 items did not make the cut and were not recommended. Those items totaled about $1 million. Most of those needs were addressed in some other manner and very few were rejected completely.

The school board will meet again on Saturday, January 26 for a budget retreat at the central office building and again on January 31 for their next regular meeting. That meeting will have a public hearing on the budget. The RCEA will observe these and all other future school board budget meetings. We, most likely, will speak to our proposal at the January 31 meeting.

Without a doubt, the open, transparent budget process the school board has adopted is refreshing. However, several looming potential kinks in the budget process could derail the positive effort.

One of the quirks of our local governmental system is that we have elected school boards with absolutely no revenue/tax authority. This body must present their budget to the county board of supervisors for approval. Interestingly, the elected county board of supervisors has absolutely no legal authority to dictate to the elected school board how they will spend approved funds. That being said, the board of supervisors can and routinely does simply direct the school board to revisit their proposal and trim a certain percentage from it.

Our current board of supervisors has changed somewhat. Richard Flora, ex-school central office staff member and the Craig County Administrator, has taken the Chairman position on the board of supervisors. Charlotte Moore was elected to replace the retiring Mike Wray. She joins Flora, Mike Altizer, Joe McNamara, and Butch Church on the board.

The RCEA was hoping that the board of supervisors would attend the school board retreat on Saturday, January 26 to discuss the school budget, but we’ve heard they will not attend. That’s a disappointment. In our opinion, the more the school board and board of supervisors have the opportunity to share information regarding budgets and schools, the more transparent and strong our local government becomes.

The other potential impediment to implementing our budget proposal is the eventual state budget being crafted now in Richmond. In the original proposal put forth by Governor Tim Kaine, no money for teacher salaries was included in the first year of the budget. Usually when the Governor includes teacher pay in the budget, he puts in money for the state share** of an x% raise. With no money in the state budget for a teacher salary increase for the 2008-2009 school year, the onus of providing any raise will fall squarely back on the localities…unless VEA can affect an amendment to that budget. There is some hope that can happen. Back in December, the Roanoke County School Board met with area legislators. At that meeting , Delegate Griffith-currently the Speaker of the House and arguably the most powerful legislator in the General Assembly- told the group that he supports teachers but not a state salary raise. He did offer, however, his efforts to scratch together $100 or $200 for teachers. Obviously, we need to do better than that.

On the positive side, the Governor’s budget includes money to address the re-benchmarking of the Standards of Quality (SOQ). The SOQ’s are legal code that form the basis for state support for local funding. The SOQ’s define what programs and positions the state will support. In past years, Roanoke County, along with most other localities, has found the need to go above and beyond the staffing minimums prescribed in the SOQ’s. Each time a locality does that, they do it using 100% non-state funds. Every few years, the Virginia JLARC (Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission) takes a look at the state formula and adjusts it. The most recent review was particularly fruitful and there were many funding enhancements in the SOQ’s. If the legislators maintain the JLARC recommendations in the budget, the overall state education budget will increase by about 7.5%.

In addition, the state uses a sliding scale called a composite index to determine the actual dollars that will flow to a locality. That scale has also been adjusted and Roanoke County’s composite score has dropped (meaning we are relatively poorer). Mrs. Hodge anticipates receiving more state money because of that.

In each of these two cases, we need to work to make sure that any new monies coming to the county for the benefit of schools actually get appropriated to the schools. What we don’t want to see is the supervisors erasing money from one pot while money from the state pot is added. We must remain vigilant and engaged in the process. More on what we must do will be posted in the next edition of the RCEA blog.

* Currently, a teacher must work over 20 years to get to the mid point on the teacher salary scale.

** State share is usually about 35% of the cost based on a complex formula that no humans understand.