Chesterfield schools expect additional budget shortfall

Chesterfield County school employees, surveyed about where $40 million to $50 million in budget cuts should be made, now are fighting one another to save their jobs, school officials say.

Employees were notified Tuesday about the need for deeper cuts in the district's proposed budget for 2011 and were asked to complete a survey of proposed reductions, which would include staff positions.

School Board Chairman Marshall W. Trammell Jr. said yesterday that he has been receiving correspondence from school employees asking him to save their jobs and suggesting people be cut from other departments.

"'Cut them, not me,'" he said employees are saying. "That's not what we wanted to happen."

Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome sent a letter Tuesday to employees outlining how the budget shortfall nearly doubled after Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's decision to use additional federal stimulus money reserved for next year's budget to help close this year's state funding gap. The governor's proposal would pull back the remaining $13 million of the $19.5 million originally budgeted for Chesterfield schools for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

In addition, the county learned recently that it would receive $8 million less for its general state aid for education next year in fiscal 2012 than it receives now. The two state actions would result in an additional revenue shortfall of about $20 million.

Before Kaine proposed his budget on Dec. 18, Chesterfield school officials had estimated a $25 million to $30 million budget shortfall.

"It's absolutely disheartening," Trammell said. "It is going to end up being devastating to the education system as we know it."

The Chesterfield school district used stimulus money to keep about 300 employees, most of them teachers, for the current school year. School officials still had to make $32 million in cuts for the current $571 million school budget.

Newsome followed Tuesday's letter with a survey containing a list of proposed reductions and asked employees to suggest $40 million in cuts they deemed acceptable. The proposed cuts include raising the student-teacher ratio formula and implementing furlough days, among others.

Denise Purvis, a dance teacher and choreographer at Thomas Dale High School's Specialty Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, said she would agree with furlough days but is not willing to lose benefits.

"I cannot afford to lose retirement funding," she said, referring to a proposal that requires a 4 percent employee contribution to the Virginia Retirement System, which would save the school district $12 million.

But the governor's office said local school divisions would not have the authority to shift that much of the cost to employees under Kaine's proposal.

Kaine proposed requiring state employees to pay 1 percent of their pension cost next year and 2 percent in the second year of the budget. The proposal would give local school divisions the option of requiring teachers to pay no more than state employees would have to pay, according to Gordon Hickey, the governor's press secretary.

The option of requiring school employees to take up to eight furlough days would have to be carried out within the state's requirements for a minimum of 181 instructional days or 990 hours.

If the school system chose that option, the School Board and superintendent would have to determine whether to apply the furlough days to teacher planning days, instructional days or a combination of the two, without reducing the total instructional time in the year.

Frank Cardella, president of the Chesterfield Education Association, said the association's board was concerned and frustrated with the survey's design.

They said the survey limited employee input to the choices the district provided. Employees could not choose from the proposed cuts without compromising their own jobs and benefits, Cardella said. It's also unfair to ask a science teacher to weigh the importance of a bus driver's job, he said.

"That's just not our job," he said. "Our job is to educate students, not to make personnel decisions."

Cardella said he had dozens of e-mails from members concerned they would lose their jobs if, in the survey, too many people selected theirs for elimination.

While Chesterfield schools are being hit the hardest, other school divisions in the area are expecting budget shortfalls as well.

Richmond schools are estimating $11 million to $14 million less in state revenue. Henrico County's school system expects a $16 million budget shortfall, and Hanover County estimates a $9.8 million budget gap.

Contact Juan Antonio Lizama at (804) 649-6513 or jlizama@timesdispatch.com.

Staff writer Michael Martz contributed to this report.