ABINGDON, Va. – Washington County Board of Supervisors members said they’d do their best but made no promises Wednesday when presented with an anticipated $6 million school budget shortfall.
“This is probably going to be one of the toughest budget years that our county has faced in a long, long time,” Dulcie Mumpower, board chairwoman, said during a joint meeting with the school board.
“We don’t know what we’re facing,” Mumpower said. “We’ll do the very best job we can do for you, and right now ... we don’t know what it will be.”
With $4 million anticipated in state cuts and $2 million expected in increased costs, the school system expects to be about $6 million short next year, Superintendent Alan Lee said.
Already, in the past year, Lee said, the schools lost $2.3 million in state and local funding.
“Many years you’ve come here and we’ve talked about a lot of vision of what we would like to do,” Lee told supervisors. “Right now our vision is keeping everything going the way it’s going.”
School board clerk Melissa Caudill said the actual shortfall depends on the Virginia General Assembly.
“It could get worse,” she said.
With no federal economic stimulus money expected to help offset the shortfall, textbooks and computers are among the items the state plans to cut, Caudill said.
Lee said his cost-cutting recommendations “run the gamut from not buying school buses and computers ... to reduction of positions.”
“Ultimately we may have to raise student-teacher ratios, and sad to say we may get to the point where people lose jobs,” he said.
The school system employs 1,080 people, and has left many positions unfilled in the past two years, for a savings of $1.2 million. But, Lee said, in the current budget climate that alone won’t likely be enough.
“We’re looking for your help to help us mitigate the losses we will have,” said Elizabeth Lowe, school board chairwoman, “and mitigate the impact on kids.”
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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