Back to School
The headline, "Budget Process Divides Boards," made us think. According to a
Times-Dispatch story by Juan Antonio Lizama:
"Some members of the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors feel frustrated by what they see as a lack of cooperation and ineffective communication with the school administration and School Board in this year's budget process."
Economic turmoil has complicated budget writing throughout Virginia, as jurisdictions struggle with fewer dollars from the state and with lower-than-anticipated revenue from local streams. Perhaps there is a serious rift in Chesterfield; perhaps not. But the commonwealth's approach to school boards increases the likelihood of friction.
Virginia's school boards lack taxing power. Although they draft spending plans, responsibility for completing budgets rests with boards of supervisors and city councils. Supervisors and council members must take the heat (1) for raising taxes to pay for the school board's recommendations, (2) for shifting funds from other governmental functions, such as law enforcement, to keep the schools whole, or (3) for cutting spending on education. The potential for mischief diminishes when supervisors and council members appoint members to school boards.
If "no taxation without representation" belongs in America's civic catechism, then "no representation without taxation (and spending)" belongs there as well. Elected school boards ought to have the power to tax -- which would ensure that they took direct responsibility for the fiscal and political consequences of their actions.
Virginia has been spared much of the institutional bloodletting that has afflicted other states. It is a credit to our political culture. Chesterfield's boards seem unlikely to exchange ICBMs, or, for that matter, to slip whoopie cushions under their competing board's seats. We're not calling in the Marines. The issue here relates to principle. By their very nature tax-free school boards mock standards of democratic accountability.
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