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School Board cuts $49 million from budget
The public schools will be hiring 100 fewer teachers than planned next year, but still adding more than 3,000 students. The School Board approved the cutback in hiring April 7 when it adopted a budget of $745.6 million for the spending year that starts July 1. Of that, $536.8 million will come from local taxes.
To reach that number – the amount allocated to the schools by the Board of Supervisors – the School Board cut just under $49 million from the budget it adopted last January.
By adding one student to each classroom at all grade levels, the School Board cut 100 teaching positions, all from new hires. No employees will be fired.
Other cuts to reach the $49 million target include eliminating a 3 percent cost-of-living increase for all school employees, eliminating 18 new secretarial and kindergarten jobs, and eliminating the planned addition of 10 new substitute custodians.
Superintendent of Schools Edgar Hatrick recommended elimination of 18 new English as a Second Language teachers, and 18 ESL aides. The board concurred.
His goal this year, Hatrick told the board Monday night, was to “do no harm. Or as little as possible to children. We tried not to undo any current program.”
Teachers may not agree that no harm will be done.
Diann Morales, a first-grade teacher at Seldens Landing Elementary School, is living the budget crunch from both ends. The taxes on her Leesburg home are going up $800, and her income is going to stay flat for the second year in a row.
“I'm a taxpayer and I understand the desire for no new taxes. But don't tell teachers they are doing a lousy job and they don't need the money because they have a spouse with a job,” she said, referring to a comment from Supervisor Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge). “With this many students in a classroom, we are not serving this community.”
Everyone said “just one more” student in classroom won't make a difference, Morales said. But she has been “one more'd” every year for the past six, and has 25 first-graders today – the School Board goal was 22 and just went up to 23.
“I don't need gizmos and paper, I don't need high-speed things. I need fewer bodies in my class.”
Next year's budget situation could be even more grim, Hatrick told the board, and he gave members a required one-year notice that he would be recommending a study of the viability of some of the smaller western elementary schools -- Middleburg and Aldie in particular have small enrollments.
Next year, Hatrick said, could bring not only no cost-of-living increase to salaries, but also no step increase, which is a salary increase for meeting performance goals. The 2 percent step increases are intact in this year's budget.
Eliminating the 3 percent cost-of-living increase reduced spending for the coming year by $13.3 million. The board held onto its new salary schedule for teachers and other employees, which is calculated to keep Loudoun competitive in hiring teachers and staff.
In Loudoun, a first-year teacher with a bachelor's degree will make $43,065 next fall. For the 2007-08 year, that new teacher in Fairfax would have made $43,911, and in Montgomery County, Md., $44,200.
Next year's budget deliberations, Hatrick said, could see more fees, increases in summer school tuition, fees for getting maps from the Planning Department, fees for withholding deductions for the Loudoun Education Association and for the 403(b) savings plans, fees for AP tests, increases in meal prices, and putting elementary, middle and high school students together on the same bus runs.
Board members deliberated until their 11 p.m. deadline to make just over $500,000 in changes to the superintendent's recommended cuts. At the end of the night, they had restored two of four paid holidays for 12-month hourly employees that the superintendent had recommended cutting, and had put back in the budget plans for full-day kindergarten at three schools. That money came from library funds and interactive whiteboards.
Increased class size at the high school level is not as great an issue, said David Palanzi at Stone Bridge High School. But he also lives in Leesburg, his taxes are going up, and his cost-of-living increase is gone.
“I think the Board of Supervisors needs to recognize there's a cost for having a school system,” he said. “As a homeowner, I appreciate having a quality system that keeps my property value high.”
Contact the reporter at ssollinger@timespapers.com
Wow! That wasn't so difficult, was it? Makes you wonder how easy it would have been to cut another $49M.
Posted by MarkKay
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It's nice to see that at least some people live in the real world where budgets aren't theories and the taxpaying public pays real money and when it's used up it's used up. Can't get blood from a turnip.
Posted by SomeGuy
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