Region's education system in crisis

For all of their geographic commonality, the city of Bristol, Va., and Washington County face drastically different challenges in addressing reductions in state education funding.

Washington County is dealing with a $4 million decrease, or about 10 percent of its fiscal 2009-10 state allotment of $42 million. In sharp contrast, city school leaders must make up a $201,000 cutback, or about 1.6 percent of the $12 million it receives from Richmond.

Earlier this month, the General Assembly reduced state funding for public education by $253 million over the next two years to address a $3 billion budget shortfall.

Every Virginia school division will receive less money in fiscal 2010-11, with disparities rooted in a complex formula that determines each local government’s ability to pay.

Washington County’s $4 million hit coincides with a $1.8 million local shortfall, according to Superintendent Alan Lee.

“We’re eliminating everything from school bus purchases to instructional supplies, but we’re still looking at a substantial deficit,” Lee said. “The Board of Supervisors has agreed to give us a $550,000 increase, which will greatly help us.”

On Tuesday, the county’s Board of Supervisors agreed to direct about $550,000 from a 2-cent property tax rate increase to the schools. But making up the full amount would require a 20-cent increase to the county’s property tax rate.

At Monday’s Board of Education meeting, Lee will recommend a plan to eliminate 56 positions, which includes leaving 25 spots unfilled through retirement or attrition and laying off 16 teachers and 15 support staff.

Depending on how the numbers work out and what course the board takes, those numbers could be reduced somewhat.

“And I have recommended reducing the number of assistant [sports] coaches at the high school level and eliminating middle school athletics,” Lee said. “That will also be a board decision,”

At its meeting, the board is also expected to discuss which individuals might be cut, Lee said, but that will occur in closed session.

“Every one of those people have an impact on our kids. Every one of them has a role to play. Fifty-six is a lot of positions, but it could be a lot worse,” Lee said. “At one time during the session, the legislature said it could be double what it is. That really had us reeling.”

Lee said he expects to balance the budget with one-time monies, including federal stimulus dollars and drawing from the textbook fund.

“It’s tough right now for everybody. Every other school system is cutting back or doing no hiring and businesses are laying off, too. I don’t know that we can cry too loud,” Lee said.

By contrast, the city’s $201,168 state cut is expected to prompt relatively minor changes, Bristol Virginia Superintendent Ina Danko said.

There are no planned reductions in work force – other than two temporary positions and two literacy coaches all currently funded by federal stimulus dollars – and no increase in pupil-teacher ratios, she said.

“We made drastic cuts last year,” Danko said. “When we cut $1.6 million from our budget last year, that was about everything there was to cut. So this year won’t be so severe.”

Last spring, city school officials eliminated some teaching, administrative and support positions, eliminated or reduced pay supplements, froze all salaries and made other cost-cutting moves.

Making up that $200,000 is expected to include savings generated by replacing seven retirees with less-experienced, lower-paid teachers and reorganizing a program for suspended elementary and middle school students.

“That program is currently at the Boys and Girls Club, and we will hopefully bring it in to one of our elementary schools, and that will be a considerable savings to us on our campus,” Danko said.

Because the stimulus money will expire, preserving the program will require some additional spending.

This year, the city’s proposed budget also includes a step salary increase for all personnel, but its fate won’t be known until the budget and the city’s contribution are both finalized.

Regional snapshots

The city’s situation is far from the norm, as many area divisions expect layoffs, drastically cutting expenses and delaying major purchases.

In Wise County, Va., school officials are trying to resolve the loss of $5 million in state funding with a combination of layoffs, unfilled positions, reduced transportation costs and reallocation of some federal stimulus funds, Superintendent Jeff Perry said.

“We’ve got about 50-plus people retiring, and we didn’t replace most of them. And we’re non-renewing [contracts] for about 15 certified [teachers] and five support people,” Perry said.

With significantly fewer teachers, pupil-teacher ratios will rise.

“This will allow us to get where we need to be for a balanced budget. All across the state, divisions are having to make substantial changes,” Perry said.

The $40 million that Wise County now receives from the state represents about 52 percent of its $78 million fiscal 2009-10 spending plan.

In Buchanan County, state funding is being cut more than $2 million – from $20.8 million to $18.6 million for the upcoming year, Superintendent Tommy Justus said.

“We’re going to try and do this through attrition – people retiring or taking jobs somewhere outside our county,” Justus said. “And we’ll look at squeezing and streamlining everywhere we can.”

Like most divisions, the final budget also will depend on a significant local contribution, Justus said.

“We don’t know yet about the local match, but our Board of Supervisors has done a good job. Right now, our local match is more than $10 million, where by code and the composite index, they’re required to fund about $6.9 million,” Justus said.

In the past 15 years, Buchanan County has closed or consolidated eight schools and now employs 150 fewer teachers, Justus said.

In Smyth County, Va., the state cutback totals about $6 million, but that includes $700,000 for an education program at the Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute, Superintendent Mike Robinson said.

“That education program and pediatric patient service is being closed. It’s painful to lose that program,” Robinson said.

In terms of traditional classroom programs, the division’s goal is to minimize impact on students.

“Our goal is try not to do any across-the-board pay cuts or formal reduction in work force,” Robinson said. “And to try to do everything we can to protect student programs.”

Like Bristol, Va., Smyth County made some staffing reductions last year and hopes to balance this year’s spending plan by not replacing some retirees, cutting back overtime pay and other changes.

“We’re still working with the county and we don’t know what their contribution will be,” Robinson said, adding it will likely be another month before the plan is finalized.

“It’s pretty tough. We’re tightening our belts while trying to not impact our children,” Robinson said.

It could be worse

While the news for school leaders isn’t good, it could have been worse, according to state Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol.

“Throughout the session, the General Assembly made K-12 education one of our top priorities overall,” Wampler said. “We made the cuts we had to, to balance the budget, but tried to leave the decisions up to the localities.”

Had state leaders followed the recommendation of former Gov. Tim Kaine and frozen the composite index for each locality, Bristol, Va., schools, for example, would have lost an additional $600,000 in state funds.

“That would have been backbreaking,” Danko said. “That would have meant the loss of many personnel and increasing pupil-teacher ratios.”

The composite index blends a locality’s total real estate values, sales tax revenues, adjusted gross income and school enrollment to determine funding levels. It is designed to ensure that poor districts receive a proportionally larger share of state money than wealthy districts.

The city’s new index of .3132 – the region’s highest – is based on property values of $1.21 billion, an adjusted gross income of $404 million, retail sales of $361.8 million and a 2008 school division enrollment of 2,272.

With the biennial shift, indexes for the city, Dickenson and Washington counties declined, while all others increased, according to the state Department of Education.

“The biggest variable in the funding equation is the composite index,” Wampler said. “We looked at the composite index through the entire session to minimize the impact of cuts to education – but we haven’t seen this type of economic downturn, some would say, since the 1930s.”

The General Assembly ultimately decided not to freeze the index at the previous level, but to hold localities “harmless” this year if their index rose.

“We did not want to further penalize the lesser affluent areas because of the economic downturn,” Wampler said.

Among other changes, the state also temporarily changed how localities pay into the Virginia Retirement System and permitted slightly larger class sizes under its Standards of Learning formula.

“Localities will be required to pay VRS on a yet-to-be determined schedule, which gives them some flexibility in how they repay,” Wampler said. “They may catch a break over the next two years.”

dmcgee@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2532