ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996 TAG: 9601110023
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
Picking up where he left off last spring, Montgomery County School Superintendent Herman Bartlett proposed a 1996-97 budget Thursday that calls for a 12 percent spending increase and puts the blame for such a large request squarely on the county Board of Supervisors.
Bartlett renewed arguments he first used last year to support an 8 percent spending increase request. His case - that the Board of Supervisors has consistently reduced its support for education since 1990-91 - fell flat last spring. The supervisors awarded the schools a 4.5 percent jump, rejecting the larger request because it would have required a real-estate tax increase.
In response, the School Board delayed some new programs and slashed teachers salary increases to 1.2 percent (though it later increased them to 2 percent).
This time, the superintendent is proposing a $5.7 million spending increase. Some $1.8 million of that would go to give employees a 7 percent pay raise. The balance would go to a slate of initiatives the Board of Supervisors didn't fund last year, and toward a new series of programs, all part of a six-year school improvement plan. Bartlett pulled no rhetorical punches in unveiling his $53.1 million spending plan before the county School Board.
"Admittedly, this is a large number. But when viewed in terms of our county's recent past efforts, a major commitment by the county must be forthcoming," Bartlett said.
The School Board will use his proposal as a starting point before approving a budget and sending it to the Board of Supervisors by Feb. 2. It has set budget work sessions for 8 p.m. Tuesday at Christiansburg Primary School and 7:30 p.m. Jan. 15 and 16 at the School Board offices on Junkin Street in Christiansburg. The School Board also has scheduled a public hearing on the budget for 7:30 p.m. Jan 23 at Christiansburg High School.
The School Board sets policy for the Montgomery school system but can only propose what it would like to spend from year to year. The Board of Supervisors holds taxing authority and sets rates in April that determine the school budget, by far the largest chunk of the county's annual spending.
Bartlett made his budget proposal during a meeting that saw newly elected School Board members flex their voting muscles for the first time. By a 5-4 vote, the School Board elected Annette Perkins as its new chairwoman over Roy Vickers, who had been chairman for three years. Perkins won when three of the four newly elected members - Wat Hopkins, Jim Klagge and Bernard Jortner - supported her with Mary Beth Dunkenberger, an appointee who joined last year. The fourth new member, Michael Smith, supported Vickers along with Barry Worth and David Moore, who came off his sickbed to vote, then went home afterward, missing the budget presentation.
The board also elected Worth as vice chairman.
In the past, Perkins has been a critic of Bartlett and has clashed with Vickers and other board members who supported the superintendent during his rocky first year (1993-94) on the job. But Thursday, Perkins was more conciliatory. "I will continue to work for the children of Montgomery County, that's my goal, that's my focus," she said.
Vickers has been credited with rebuilding political ties to the Board of Supervisors, but he's also been criticized by county PTAs for not being a strong enough advocate for the schools, to the point that Blacksburg-area parents groups called for his resignation in October 1994. His opponents disliked his support of Bartlett and criticized a clumsy political endorsement of Republican House candidate Larry Linkous that Vickers made before an assembly of teachers last summer.
Perkins retired as a Blacksburg High School teacher in 1991. Just before her retirement, she lost a bid for the Blacksburg-area School Board appointment to Vickers by a 4-3 Board of Supervisors vote. But that fall, the supervisors appointed her to fill out an unexpired term for the District A seat. She was reappointed in 1992 and her term will run until the end of 1997, when the seat will be filled by an elected member.
In other business Wednesday, the School Board accepted Bartlett's recommendation that a student be expelled for a violation of the code of conduct involving a weapon.
The expulsion vote followed a nearly two-hour closed-door session, about an hour and 20 minutes of which was devoted to the weapons case, Bartlett said.
He would not identify the student or school involved or the type of weapon, except to say it was not a firearm.
In October, the School Board voted against expelling a fifth-grader at Elliston-Lafayette Elementary School for handling a BB gun on a school bus. That was the first weapons case the School Board had to handle since the General Assembly required stricter punishment for children who bring weapons to school.
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB