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School numbers hard to pin down; Supes won’t grant
extension
By MARY EVA CASSADA
Special to The News & Record
The Halifax County School Board won’t get more time from the Board of
Supervisors to craft its budget.
County Administrator Bryan Foster said the county’s own pressing
timeline means two weeks extra just isn’t possible.
“We are not going to do that,” confirmed Supervisors Chairman William
Fitzgerald.
School Trustees are in a pickle because they don’t know how much money
is coming down from the state: The governor’s budget is looking
increasingly grim due to economic downturns, and the House and Senate
versions remain in flux until Feb. 17.
“Everything we [will] give them is a guess,” commented Trustees
Chairman Steve Anderson at their Monday night meeting.
Schools Superintendent Paul Stapleton had advised his board that “this
is not a good way to be doing a budget.”
The Trustees and their administration usually put together a budget
without a final legislative plan because they average together the
House and Senate versions to produce a fair stab at the end result.
That’s not possible this year, warned Stapleton.
The Trustees’ needs are colliding with the Supervisors’ needs, who this
year want a budget in place early in order to set a tax rate by April 7
in order to send property tax bills out by the first of May in order to
get taxes back by June 5. The early tax filing is due to the county’s
switching over to a twice-annual tax collection schedule.
Add to the calendar various mandatory deadlines and public hearings,
and Foster said there’s no time to spare.
Fitzgerald added that the particulars of the school budget might have
to be altered after its adoption.
Gov. Tim Kaine on Tuesday released a revised proposed budget for the
coming fiscal year that takes into account the subprime mortgage
crisis, housing market troubles and rising energy costs. The first
budget didn’t bode well for schools (no immediate teacher pay hikes;
less money to the pre-K program), but this one looks even worse
(smaller raises for teachers beginning in 2009, cuts to school
construction funding).