"This has been a very painful process"
School board struggles to balance budget after funding decreases from county and state
By Donna C. Gregory NEWS EDITOR

Photo courtesy of Chesterfield County Public Schools A plan to offer an afternoon shift at the Chesterfield Technical Center has been postponed as a result of the school system receiving less state and local funding.

The Chesterfield County School Board is expected to make some hard choices this week when members finally vote on cuts to balance the school system's FY09 budget (starting July 1).

The fallout began earlier this month when the county's board of supervisors dropped the property tax rate by 2 cents, leading to a $6 million reduction in funding for the school system. That came in the wake of a $2.5 million reduction in state funding.

Despite the reduction in funding, the school budget still grew by 4.5 percent this year to $594.5 million. It will allow for the hiring of 151 new staff members in anticipation of around 900 additional students this fall. Teachers will also receive a 4-8 percent raise.

School board members met last week to hear a staff proposal on what should be cut. Those reductions include putting off the launch of a new employee savings plan ($731,300), cutting the capital improvement reserve fund ($1.09 million), eliminating 37 new staff positions ($1.59 million) and delaying the replacement of vehicles ($370,000) and furniture ($200,000). (The reduction in the capital improvement reserve fund will be offset by $885,000 in additional state funding, bringing the net loss to around $206,000.)

As of press time, Marshall Trammell Jr., vice chair of the school board, felt the plan proposed by staff would be adopted with few changes. "There might be some tweaks to it, but not many," said Trammell. "I don't see any major changes."

One of those tweaks might involve adding back some teachers for the Chesterfield Technical Center. The school system had hoped to begin offering a new afternoon shift at the tech center this fall, but funding is no longer available to hire the nine teachers needed to man the program. Student demand for some tech center programs far outweighs available seats. The afternoon shift would have allowed potentially another 200 students to take classes there.

"We might be able to add some additional classes, but as far as a second [shift], that's probably dead," admitted Trammell.

Dale District representative David Wyman asked school administrators last week to look at ways to increase tech center offerings using less money. Matoaca District representative Omarh Rajah agreed. "I don't think we should scale back the entire program."

"It's a matter of if we put it back, what are we willing to take out to balance the budget?" reminded Kathy Kitchen, assistant superintendent for business and finance.

Trammell took issue with the possibility of adding a new program back into the budget when there were other cuts that have an immediate impact on students and staff, such as eliminating funding for the new employee savings plan. "There are so many things that we are looking at that are important," said Trammell. "I think one of the guiding principles I have to look at is trying to do no harm."

Cutting 13 new security officers ($368,078, including salary, training, uniforms and other expenses) was also a hard pill for board members to swallow. As proposed, one security guard would have been stationed at each middle school, providing additional help for school resource officers.

"[Cutting the security guards] scares me," said Trammell. "I am not comfortable cutting those."

Several school board members cited security concerns at some middle schools, although no schools were specifically named. Wyman asked if some officers should be added back into the budget for middle schools where disciplinary problems are more common. "I don't know that some schools need them more than others," replied Superintendent Marcus Newsome.

"This has been a very painful process," said Trammell after last week's meeting. "Some people like to tell you that because the school system gets a lot of money, there's a lot of fat, but what they are missing is that so much of that money is dedicated money by the state. There's not a lot of fat."

As board members bring the FY09 budget into alignment, they are also faced with more worries next year when there will be questionable state and local funding.

"This is not as bad as it's going to get the following year," predicted Trammell.

According to current estimates, the FY10 budget already shows a shortfall of $9.5 million.