|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Trustees make pitch for more county money
By MARY EVA CASSADA
Special to The News & Record
A brand-new Halifax County School Board signaled last week it was
taking a more assertive approach to getting money out of the Board
of
Supervisors.
At the Supervisors’ retreat, Trustees and school staff played the
role
of the squeaky wheel, warning of dire consequences and axed teaching
spots if more money didn’t flow their way.
Supervisors took offense at the suggestion they didn’t do enough for
education, pointing to the brand-new twin elementaries and
overhauled
middle school to the tune of $60 million. Schools aren’t their only
expense, they stressed, and citizens complain mightily about tax
hikes.
Budget talk on Thursday started with Finance Director Bill Covington
saying the governor’s proposed state budget shows no increases for
teacher pay and even a decrease in funding for pre-K, one of the
governor’s pet projects. Halifax County’s teacher pay ranks among
the
lowest in the region, making recruiting difficult, he said.
“We have issues” with teacher pay, said Covington.
“We don’t compete with our neighbors and we don’t compete with the
private sector,” said Deputy Superintendent Larry Clark.
Covington also pointed to skyrocketing fuel prices that already have
put his transportation costs a half-million dollars over budget and
dashed plans to buy new buses to replenish an aging fleet.
Supervisors immediately tried to rein in Trustees’ hopes.
“It’s going to be … not a whole lot of wiggle room,” said Supervisor
Doug Bowman, citing debt service on the new schools ($5 million
annually for the next 20 years), a solid-waste transfer station
(already over budget at $1.8 million) and new multi-county landfill
expenses.
But newly elected Trustees Roger Long, Joe Gasperini and Devin Snead
wouldn’t let the matter drop.
Long announced a litany of financial concerns: that the schools got
80
percent of their budget from the state and only 20 from the county;
that the county wasn’t increasing school spending commensurate with
taxes; that Supervisors handed over $13.8 million in 2002-03 and
only
$13.2 in the current year.
Gasperini said that, with inflation, local spending should have gone
up
by 28 percent in the past six years; instead, it has dropped.
He particularly criticized what he saw as the county’s practice of
giving schools less money as the state gives the county more.
Clark warned that his staff would look at shrinking the teaching
force
(and thus widening the pupil-teacher ratio) if the budget got much
tighter.
Veteran Trustee Arthur Reynolds reminded Supervisors that no other
county agency affects as many people as the school system.
Supervisors seemed slightly taken aback.
“How can you sit there and say there hasn’t been an increase in
contributions to the schools?” shot back Supervisors Chairman
William
Fitzgerald, citing the massive, concurrent school construction and
renovation of the last year.
In Fitzgerald’s support, County Administrator Bryan Foster countered
that the county gives the schools $2.5 million more than what the
state
mandates. Sixty percent of its $100 million budget goes to schools,
he
said. Some of that is state and federal money funneled through.
Bowman concurred, saying the county compares favorably with its
neighbors in terms of local contribution.
Thirty cents of the 48-cent real estate tax is now going toward the
school bond debt, said Supervisor Wayne Conner, and “We didn’t have
to
do that.”
Veteran Trustee D.H. McDowell said of the recent construction plan:
“Don’t hold that against us.” The two big new elementaries and
made-over middle school were done in part for economic development,
were overdue and were an investment in the future, he said.
“All school systems want more money,” said Bowman. “All citizens
want
lower taxes.”
With the recent reassessment, to be followed by a newly set tax
rate,
landowners are already looking at higher tax bills. Those with
holdings
larger than 50 acres “are going to be howling,” Bowman predicted.
Fitzgerald invited the complaining Trustees to meet with their
respective Supervisor – and to come to the county’s budget hearing,
where citizens annually complain that “the school system gets too
much
money.”
Ultimately, however, Supervisors were not entirely unsympathetic.
Supervisor William Claiborne urged a less eager approach: “Remember
the
times. Remember where we are. Remember what we’ve done. Just be
patient.”
“I wish I could change this picture,” said Fitzgerald, the salary
ranking in hand. “Teachers deserve better.”
“The Board [of Supervisors] wants the best for students. I think we
can
all agree on that,” said Foster.
The department budgets are due to the Supervisors on Feb. 29.