The State of
Around this time of year, budget, budget, budget is all we hear! This budget season, however, is one for the ages. At the regular Roanoke County School Board meeting last Thursday, Real Virginians (a.k.a. school employees) like me were accused by one speaker in the public comment time of causing public hysteria over the budget. If I could have replied to the man, I would have told him, “GOOD! The public SHOULD be hysterical about the state budget.”
I’m going to break Rule # 2 in creating a readable blog entry. I’m going to write about many different items and ideas all in one piece. Hopefully, all the items are tied together by one binding theme, hysteria.
Let’s start nationally and work our way down.
The National Scene
President Obama’s education secretary, Arne Duncan revealed his revision to NCLB this past week. NEA had forged an excellent working relationship with
The State Budget
As you no doubt have heard, the state legislators came to agreement on a balanced state biennial budget (2 year). This budget will cut public school education over 1 billion dollars over the two-year period. Governor Kaine introduced the budget in December and slated education to receive $800 million in cuts. The Senate then put forth amendments to the Kaine budget that would up the hit to education by $114 million. The House then came home with amendments that tacked on $683 over Kaine’s original budget. The final compromise budget goes $253 million above Kaine’s original $800 million in cuts according to Rob Jones of VEA.
The Media Reports on the Budget
Now, I’ve been following the budget reconciliation process, and I knew that the conferees were working off of Governor Kaine’s original budget. Both state chambers had amended Kaine’s budget, and they had to come to some sort of reconciliation. Common sense.
I was listening to WVTF on Monday morning and heard a capital news report. On that report, the reporter confidently declared that public schools would take a $253 million dollar cut. I spit out my coffee. Okay…I don’t drink coffee. I knew that the total hit to education was over ONE BILLION dollars. Later, I heard the news director at the same station repeat the same $253 million sum. I spit my coffee out again. Hearing that incorrect number twice made my mind start whirling. I wondered how many local media outlets were informing the public that public school education would only be cut $253 million? It turns out more than you would think.
So if you’re with me on this, here’s a quick look at some major media outlets and how they covered the education hit. All comparisons use VEA/Rob Jones previously cited figures as a basis.
Richmond Times http://tinyurl.com/ygl7hc9
They got it the closest to right. $253 on top of one billion from Governor Kaine. Kudo’s to that flagship publication.
Washington Post http://tinyurl.com/ykwogpt
You’ll need a free subscription to view the article. In it, they claim that public schools will lose $646 million. Now if they mean that’s the number for the first year of the biennium, then that might be close.
The Roanoke Times http://tinyurl.com/yd2q9u2
The Times is a little confusing. The reporter mentions the $253 million in cuts then says that, overall, education will receive $790 million less in funding than in 2008-2009. He attributes that fact to Rob Jones of VEA. Really? I’ll have to ask Rob about that.
WSLS http://tinyurl.com/yhmandt
Newschannel 10’s Jay Warren reported that public school education received a $253 million cut in funding. (Over $750 million short)
WDBJ http://tinyurl.com/ygjrusq
WDBJ confidently reported that public school education received a $253 million cut. (Over $750 million short)
WVTF $253 million…
So as you can see, the media seems to have a different opinion of what the facts are in this important matter. Thanks to the reporting of many local and state media outlets, the general public may now believe that public school education received $253 million in cuts out of the $4 billion that were carved out. So what’s so bad about that?
VRS Takes A Hit
There’s no way to sugarcoat it. VRS was permanently altered by this year’s General Assembly. The pact that state employees and the state have cultivated over the past 50 years has been radically altered. WSLS had a report on the changes.
On the positive side, most of the changes do not affect current employees (no mention of vesting in the system either). However, new hires will participate in what has now become a two-tiered retirement program, one tier for current employees, another for new hires from this point going forward, forever and ever.
Two changes will affect everyone:
1. The state will now allow localities to decide to mandate employees (I know...wordy…dramatic effect in a long article) pay anywhere from 0 to 5% of their annual salary as their share of their retirement account. Since the early 1980’s this portion was picked up by the locality. We were granted this perk in-lieu of raises. Again this is a local option. As of this writing, RCPS has not visited this topic in open sessions. Hopefully they won’t tread over this ground.
2. The general Assembly has now granted localities the option to opt out of the VRS Group Life insurance coverage for fiscal year 2012. This loophole affects local government employees, but not state employees. Read more about the VRS solution on the VEA DAILY REPORTS.
· There will be a budget work session (previously scheduled for March 16) this coming Monday at 6:30 in Room E of the school office building on
· An interesting question was posed at the very end of last week’s budget session with the county supervisors. Jerry Canada asked if the county was in position to fulfill its part in the 50/50 revenue (loss) sharing agreement as had been practice in recent years. His answer was that if the final budget approved was close to the Senate budget, then the county would be able to fulfill its obligation. If, however, the budget came in closer to the House budget, then there would be problems meeting that obligation. The final state budget was higher than the Senate, but less than the House. Stay tuned.
When Virginia Tech’s men’s basketball team was denied admission to the NCAA Hoops tournament last year, Seth Greenberg, the coach, said that the selection committee must be “certifiably insane” for not selecting VT. That’s how I feel about the state of public school education funding. Read this editorial from Monday’s Roanoke Times.
Finally, I leave you with hope. On Saturday March 22 at Noon, educators from all across the area will attend a rally spearheaded by the Roanoke Education Association (REA). The rally begins at Noon at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Bridge next to The Hotel Roanoke. Please make time to come out and show your support for public school education.
Thom Ryder
(Please forgive omissions and typos…I wrote this late at night)
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