THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504070198
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: On the Street
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Here we go again, folks - the annual budget follies, starring the school administrators and City Hall numbers crunchers, is back on the road.
On stage now at the local Bijou is a production featuring song-and-dance routines inspired by the proposed 1995 operating and capital improvement budgets.
These, incidentally, add up to $837.6 million and $950.7 million respectively and cover every aspect of local governmental operations, except maybe senior citizens' finger-painting classes.
On one side we have a blues act featuring Ph.D.s wailing about how stingy and irresponsible City Hall types are, and how they are pinching nickels so hard that the buffalo squeaks.
If budget recommendations served up recently are sanctioned by the City Council, they sniffle, public education as we know it in Virginia Beach will be headed down the road to perdition.
Then the bean counters will tap dance into the spotlight, singing a rousing chorus of ``We ain't got no money.''
At issue here is the city manager's recommendation to give educators $6.1 million less than they asked for to run city schools this fiscal year and about $106 million less than they asked for to build new buildings, refurbish existing ones, buy classroom computers and expand educational programs over the next five years.
Between now and May 9, when the City Council makes its final decision on the budget, there will be four council workshops and two public hearings - ample opportunity for anybody with any opinion on city money issues to sound off.
And, you can bet there will be plenty of sounding off.
There are variations on the theme of fiscal responsibility from city to city in Virginia, where governing councils - not school boards - still make the call on spending.
Inevitably, all debates boil down to the question of how brave local politicians are about digging further into the wallets of their constituents to finance often admirable, but very expensive, educational goals.
These days the fight for the buck at every level of government is especially serious, mainly because nobody knows where it's coming from and how much it's going to be.
Congress and state pols are promising tax breaks and balanced budgets right and left. Jowly politicians in three-piece suits and fifty-dollar haircuts are making thundering attacks on welfare, Medicare, education and social entitlements of all sorts and are vowing to sweep away countless government bureaucracies in the process.
Financial gurus on Wall Street foresee recession around every corner, the dollar is under siege and U.S. citizens are buying more foreign products than they are selling overseas. The economy seems to be inching slowly ahead, but the future seems precarious.
Joe and Jane Taxpayer don't know whether they'll have enough money left in the cookie jar to buy junior or sis a new pair of Reeboks or fix up the family wagon, because their defense-related jobs are being threatened by government cutbacks. All they need to hear is that their property taxes are going to go up some more.
In other words, this ain't such a great year to be asking for a champagne cruise, educationally speaking, when we're looking at a tap beer budget.
Unless mammoth oil reserves are discovered in the plains of Pungo or Silicon Valley suddenly moves from Santa Clara Valley, Calif., to Corporate Landing in Virginia Beach, folks at local school headquarters probably would be well advised to lower their budgetary sights a tad.
Things have a way of working out, amazingly enough.
Somehow, each year, school doors stay open, kiddies learn their ABCs, teachers keep getting paid and the city always has enough leftover in the kitty to handle police and fire protection, collect the garbage and put a little sand on the resort beaches in the spring.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOLS BUDGET by CNB