Trustees begrudgingly pass budget, 5-2

21 job slots axed buy 3.5 percent hike for teachers

 

 

By MARY EVA CASSADA

Special to The News & Record

School Trustees shaved off four more positions to eke out a

half-percent teacher pay hike in the 2008-09 budget they approved 5-2

Thursday night.

The bottom line: 20 positions were cut due to attrition (four

administrators, five teachers, three special-area teachers, two support

staff, one custodian and five drivers); one additional administrative

job was cut and that employee will be reassigned to a vacant

non-administrative slot; extra-duty pay is chopped ($53,800); and

maintenance is cut back ($50,000).

All that belt-tightening affords teachers a 3.5 percent pay hike,

administrators 3 percent and support personnel 4 percent.

Deputy Superintendent Larry Clark said the staff cuts would not

negatively impact students’ instruction, a position echoed by Trustee

Chairman Steve Anderson.

“I do not believe that the positions eliminated …will have a negative

impact on instruction.  The board and the administration have worked

very hard to see that instruction is not a victim of the budget

situation. However, I will say that we have reached a ‘saturation’

point when future cuts as a result of budget implications will impact

instruction. I do not see that continued cuts in personnel, especially

instructional personnel, can be made without being negative,” Anderson

said in an e-mail.

Deputy Superintendent Larry Clark declined to specify the

“special-area” teaching jobs cut until he could notify the employees

affected, but said that, in those cases, schools would share the

position. (Special-area teachers are those in art, music and library,

for example.)

Clark said the duties of the five departed administrators would be

assimilated through the system by restructuring, and that he did not

anticipate pay hikes for personnel unless “drastic changes” resulted.

The budget vote came after a 15-minute open meeting and a 90-minute

closed-door session to discuss the 21 affected personnel.

Several Trustees were dissatisfied with what they saw as paltry pay

hikes all around.

“We’re falling farther and farther behind,” neighboring school systems,

lamented Roger Long.

“It’s a shame when you’ve got Danville advertising in our [news]papers

for teachers,” said Joe Gasperini. “It’s embarrassing, and it’s an

insult.”

Trustees Devin Snead and Stuart Comer, who voted against the budget,

said they did so because they thought the raises were too meager and

that higher raises might have been possible had their board had time to

go over the budget with a fine-tooth comb.

“The teachers deserve better and the people on the bottom need to be

brought up,” said Snead, adding later, “There’re so many line items

that could’ve been tweaked. A half percent here and a half percent

there add up.”

Gasperini, who had been among Trustees pushing Supervisors for a more

ample spending plan, was more satisfied with the outcome: “I’m happy

with the budget we have based on the money we had … but I’m not happy

with what we had to do.”

Said Anderson: “I do believe that everyone associated with the division

is disappointed with a 3.5 percent increase for instructional

personnel.  However, with this budget year, 3.5 percent is not bad.  We

certainly had hoped to offer a larger percentage increase in pay, and

we must find a way to offer higher pay just to remain in a competitive

position for teachers and administrators.”

Long praised the administration as “talented people” who crafted a

sound budget under the circumstances.

Snead said he was concerned that the job cuts “added more workload to

people. We’re bogging them down.”

Trustees found themselves in a tight economic fix due to getting less

state money than they’d hoped for, soaring fuel costs, presumed rising

health insurance costs and what some Trustees regard as a tight-fisted

Halifax County Board of Supervisors.

Earlier this spring, Trustees had originally adopted $66.4 million

budget, which included $2.6 million more in local funding than the

current year. But Halifax County Supervisors put up $13.6 million, or

$2.3 million less than the $15.9 million originally requested by the

school board.

Beyond the job cuts, the budget also includes financing the cost of 10

buses rather than purchasing them outright (saving about $450,000).

Superintendent Paul Stapleton said earlier in the meeting that

surrounding localities, already wooing teacher prospects with higher

salaries, had this spring voted in significant pay hikes,

percentage-wise. Already higher than Halifax, Danville Schools’ teacher

pay will jump 7 percent, Charlotte County’s 4 percent and Appomattox’s

5.5 percent, he said.

“Even at 3.5 percent we’re not going to gain on anyone,” Stapleton said.

“We’re in a race with surrounding school systems. We’re already last

and we can’t even catch up. It’s like you’re last horse in a horserace

and everybody else’s horse is getting faster and faster,” said Comer

later.

Clark, who has complained of losing teacher prospects to adjacent

localities with higher pay, said the 3.5 percent hike barely will help

Halifax hold its own in the recruitment race.

Ironically, he said, skyrocketing gasoline prices might buoy the

Halifax school system by preventing local teachers from jumping ship.

Clark said he thought teachers were “thinking twice before looking

elsewhere” due to fuel prices and general economic uncertainty.

With the arduous budget process finally behind them, some Trustees are

looking ahead to the next round, 2009-2010: “I do believe we need to

begin the budget process for next year in the very near future.

Obviously, we do not have figures, but we need to have dialogue with

the Board of Supervisors continuously, not just at budget time.  Next

year will be just as challenging as this year, if not more so.  We have

to prepare now to make the process run more smoothly next year.  I

think we will begin that process soon,” wrote Anderson.

Trustee D.H. McDowell Jr. was absent from the meeting.