The Chesterfield County School Board took a break from the current budget cycle to talk about the next cycle at a work session on Tuesday.
The unusual look ahead came at the urging of David Myers, the assistant superintendent of finance. With Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome helping steer the conversation, Myers pitched a plan for "rebuilding" the school system in the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2013.
"One of the things we'll have, which we usually don't, is time, if we start now," he said.
The plan, which he said was a suggestion open to interpretation and shaping, would be to involve as many people as possible early in the process to help decide which priorities would be used to build the next budget.
"I'm really excited about this," said Dianne Smith, the Clover Hill representative.
She said she particularly liked the idea of considering new priorities instead of assuming that everyone would want a return of things that were cut in recent years for budget reasons.
That approach, she said, put the board in the enviable position of "being much more significant thinkers" and allowed the county to take advantage of the creative potential of its staff.
Board Vice Chairman David Wyman, the Dale District member, said he was happy to see that the tough cuts in recent years produced positive results.
"This is a little bit about mentality," he said of the process used to trim nearly $100 million from the budget in the past three years. "That's something we need to continue."
Myers said a new way to approaching the budget process could help the board move from being reactive to proactive. "We, obviously, have a long way to go," he said, "but it's a start."
This year's budget comes back into sharp focus Tuesday, when the board will hold a public hearing on Newsome's $532.6 million budget for the year that begins July 1.
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