ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 7, 1996 TAG: 9601090015
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
Craig County, one of the smallest school divisions in Western Virginia, is a winner in Gov. George Allen's education budget for the 1996-1997 school year.
Salem is a loser.
Craig will receive $3,486 in state aid per pupil, an increase of $265, partly because of the slow growth in taxable wealth in the county. Among localities in the Roanoke and New River valleys, that's the largest amount of state money per child and the biggest increase in Allen's proposed budget.
State aid for schools is partly linked to a locality's ability to pay. Poorer localities get more state money for each child.
Salem will receive the least state money per pupil in this region - $2,447. Its allotment will increase by $138 for each child.
Salem, which has the greatest ability to pay in the Roanoke and New River valleys as measured by the state's "local composite index," is the only locality in the region that will receive less than the state average of $2,616 per pupil.
The index is based on each locality's real estate values, personal income, taxable retail sales, school enrollment and population.
The index is the percentage of school cost that a locality must pay. It is calculated for each locality every two years.
In Western Virginia, most localities pay between 30 percent and 45 percent of the cost of meeting the state's standards of quality for education. In the next year, Craig will pay 31 percent; Salem, 44 percent.
School divisions must pay 100 percent of the cost of teachers and programs that exceed the state requirements. As a result, some localities in the region pay more than half of the overall cost for schools.
John Rickman, a budget specialist with the state Department of Education, said many smaller school divisions receive a higher per-pupil allocation because some fixed costs are spread among fewer students. The state helps pay the salary of a high school principal, for instance, regardless of whether the school has 100 or 1,000 students.
Similarly, the state helps share costs for certain courses in middle and high schools regardless of the number of students in a class.
Rickman said the number of special education students also can affect the per-pupil allocation. A school with a small number might require several teachers for different disabilities, he said.
Superintendent Wayne Tripp said Salem is hurt in state aid because of its relatively high composite index. "We aren't wealthy, but they say we are in relation to other localities," he said.
But Tripp said he is not complaining about next year's allocation because "this is the best budget out of Richmond" in several years. The state predicts Salem will receive an increase of nearly $680,000 next year, but Tripp believes it will be closer to $550,000, partly because he thinks the state has overestimated the city's enrollment.
In Northern Virginia, some affluent jurisdictions pay between 70 and 80 percent of education costs because of their taxable wealth. The state has capped the local cost of the standards of quality at 80 percent; it pays the remaining 20 percent regardless of the locality's ability to pay.
The per-pupil increases in some Northern Virginia localities will be larger than those in some jurisdictions in Western Virginia, but they will receive less total state money.
The increases are the result of a slump in Northern Virginia real estate prices in the early 1990s. The decline was so deep that it caused the composite index for some localities to decrease, and the state must pay a larger share of the cost for their schools.
Real estate prices in Western Virginia localities continued to go up, however, causing the composite index for many of them to rise. As a result, the state will pay a smaller percentage and the localities must pay more of the cost for their schools.
The localities with the smallest increases in the composite index will receive the largest increases in per-pupil aid: Craig and Montgomery counties, and the cities of Radford and Roanoke.
Those with the larger increases in the index will receive the smaller increases in aid.
Statewide, Bland County will receive the most aid per pupil next year, $4,379, followed by Lee County, $4,206, and Grayson County, $4,016. Bath County, another small school division, will get only $1,417 for each child, one of the smaller allocations, because of its high taxable wealth.
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