Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 1, 1991 TAG: 9103010370
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Medium
"The School Board would question the advisability of reducing the local commitment to education," Superintendent John A. Kent wrote in a letter to the chairman of the county's Board of Supervisors. "The message this sends to the public and the surrounding area will create a negative impact."
Kent Thursday night described the letter he wrote Supervisor A.A. "Gus" Saarnijoki to School Board members and offered an analysis of the county's proposed budget and its impact on education.
Faced with a 1991-92 budget proposal that includes $2 million more in spending than it does in revenue, the Board of Supervisors is looking at a long list of "hypothetical expenditure reductions."
Among other possible areas, the supervisors could chop two elements from the School Board's $36.6 million spending request: a 2.5 percent raise for school employees and architectural and engineering work on a new middle school in Forest.
County officials have told the Board of Supervisors that those reductions would amount to $832,582 in savings.
But on Thursday, Kent called that figure into question. Dropping the plan to raise salaries by 2.5 percent would not save $705,000, as county officials have stated, Kent said. He described that number as "34 percent overstated" and said the raise would only amount to "half a million dollars and some change."
"This figure" of $705,000, Kent said in his letter, "has not been generated by the school system's administration."
Assistant County Administrator Kathleen Guzi said Thursday that Kent had told her earlier that a 1 percent raise for school employees amounted to $282,724. By multiplying the figure by 2.5, she came up with the $705,000 figure, she said.
In his letter to Saarnijoki, Kent also stressed that the Board of Supervisors cannot determine whether school employees get raises. The supervisors decide how much money the system will get, but not where it goes.
"Naturally the School Board is receptive to suggestions from the Board of Supervisors," he wrote. "However, the School Board is required by law to operate the school system."
"School Board employees are not county employees," Kent said. "School system employees are School Board employees."
In the past decade, Kent told the School Board members, the percentage of the county's budget spent on education has continually decreased.
In the 1981-82 fiscal year, the county put 77.9 percent of its funds toward education, he said. Next year - even if the supervisors approved the budget requested by the School Board - less than 66 percent of the county's money would be going to the schools.
"I have some real concerns and reservations that if this trend continues, it will have an eroding effect," Kent said.
Asked how he'll answer Kent's letter, Saarnijoki said Thursday that he did not believe it required a response.
"I guess my only reaction is that anybody paid - even partially - with county funds is a county employee," Saarnijoki said.
The supervisors will continue work on the budget Monday night, when they need to agree on a tax rate to advertise. After it is advertised the rate can be reduced, but not raised.
by CNB