Officials seek ways to deal with budget shortfall
FILE / TIMES-DISPATCH
Hanover School Superintendent Stewart Roberson foreses shocking changes in the level of education in Virginia from state budget woes.
Public schools may not look the same next fall, two months after Virginia begins a new budget year.
Class sizes could grow as large as state law allows. Music, art and physical education could shrink to the minimum. Teaching assistants and other support staff could disappear.
"I believe it would reflect a level of quality that would shock virtually every community in Virginia," Hanover County Superintendent Stewart W. Roberson said in an interview Friday.
Roberson painted a similarly grim picture for the Senate Finance Committee a day earlier, as state legislators and local officials grappled with a projected $3.5 billion budget shortfall over the next two years.
He and other local officials had plenty of ideas for how to make do, ranging from the waiver of state mandates to regional consolidation of state and local services. With state aid facing deep cuts and local revenues lagging behind economic recovery, local officials say they won't be able to afford services they're required to provide.
"It's always money," Suzette P. Denslow, chief of staff to Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones, said during a panel discussion about state and local government relationships.
It's also about jobs, according to a Finance Committee analysis that called for reducing the state's already revised revenue forecast to account for a continuing decline in worker wages and the income taxes that come from them.
Finance Committee analyst Rebecca Covey predicted that jobs would decline by 2.4 percent in this fiscal year, instead of falling 1.8 percent as projected in August. Wages won't grow as fast as predicted, even in the public sector, which accounts for a quarter of all wages and salaries in Virginia.
The result is a projected $209.7 million shortfall in state revenue this year, which is slightly more optimistic than the $250 million to $300 million shortfall estimated earlier in the week by the House Appropriations Committee staff.
It gets worse. Senate Finance staff director Betsey Daley estimated that state revenue will fall short by $619 million in the next two years, while spending pressures will increase by $2.9 million. Most of those pressures will come from the Medicaid program for low-income and disabled Virginians, with spending to increase by about $1 billion because of higher demand for services and an $800 million hole created by the disappearance of federal stimulus dollars.
Local school divisions also will lose more than $500 million in stimulus money over the next two years, but that isn't reflected in the Finance Committee's estimated shortfall. In Hanover, the school system used about $6.3 million in stimulus funds to reduce budget cuts and save jobs this year.
Hanover estimates that next year, it will have a combined budget shortfall of up to $20 million for government and schools. It expected to have about $7 million in stimulus funds for education, but the state is pulling back about $1.1 million to help balance this year's budget. After that, the stimulus money goes away, which Roberson said should be reflected in the projected two-year shortfall.
"If you are ignoring the federal stimulus cliff in 2012, you're myopic," Roberson said in an interview.
. . .
For state legislators and local officials, the next shoe will drop Dec. 18, when Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will propose a two-year budget that promises to be "austere," said press secretary Gordon Hickey.
"Everything remains on the table, and I mean everything," Hickey said Friday.
What happens to that budget proposal will be up to Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell and the General Assembly that will convene in January with a bolstered Republican majority in the House of Delegates.
McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin acknowledged that the next budget will be a challenge. "Governor-elect McDonnell will seek to work with local governments to determine the best means by which to provide government services without raising taxes on Virginia families and businesses who are struggling with the worst economy in decades," Martin said in an e-mail message Friday.
Martin said McDonnell emphasizes finding efficiencies and identifying waste, but Senate Finance analysts said that approach won't close a $3.5 billion budget gap.
Closing the gap is likely to cost jobs in state and local government, including schools, said James J. Regimbal Jr., a fiscal analyst for local government. The losses won't be as great as those already experienced in the recession, but they will hurt economies in the Richmond area, where government accounts for about 18 percent of jobs. "All that becomes a big drag on the retail side," Regimbal said.
McDonnell made job creation the center of his campaign, but Martin said that "governments will need to resist seeking short-term gimmicks that only delay making tough but crucial long-term fixes." Instead, he said, the governor-elect will focus on creating private-sector jobs once the economy begins to recover.
The governor-elect did get some good news for his proposed transportation plan at a House Appropriations Committee briefing Tuesday.
About $570 million might be available for the state's hard-pressed transportation program in the spring, when a portion of a $3.2 billion transportation bond issue adopted by the General Assembly in 2007 becomes available.
Anne Oman, budget analyst with the committee, said money would be available to pay debt service on about $570 million in bonds when a set of transportation bonds issued in 2000 comes due. A portion of the state tax on insurance premiums is used to service the debt. After a slump last year, insurance premiums are bouncing back, Oman said.
The state is approaching its bonded debt capacity, but the transportation bonds are within that capacity, analyst Tony Maggio said.
In an appearance before the Finance Committee, Lynchburg City Manager Kimball Payne said the state should not "trade off education and public safety for transportation." He also called for a fresh look at the car-tax relief adopted under then-Gov. Jim Gilmore that costs the state nearly $1 billion and requires local administration.
But Payne said the impending budget crisis also could be an opportunity to change the way localities deliver services mandated by the state, from public education to social services.
"This is not something we're going to grow out of and go back to business as usual," he said.
Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or
.
Staff writer Tyler Whitley contributed to this report.
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Reader Reactions
Mr. Melancon: I’m not hiding behind a moniker. I just don’t want some crazy, bitter nut-case calling me or, worse, coming by my house. I’m not employed by the school district. As a matter of fact, I’m unemployed. I spend time volunteering to give back to make my kids school a better place.
I’m sorry you are having trouble at your local PTA. Keep making noise. I hope you run for office and improve the conditions at your school.
Maybe this person was taking the money from the Digital Sign Fund… Do we have the right safeguards in place locally to prevent this from happening here in our area?
Patrick Terpstra, 13News
Posted on November 24, 2009 at 2:35 PM
Updated yesterday at 2:59 PM
VIRGINIA BEACH—Police say a woman facing personal financial trouble stole $1,900 from the Salem Elementary PTA.
Dawn Talbert, serving as a treasurer for the PTA, dipped into funds from January to August, said police spokesman MPO Adam Bernstein.
According to investigators, she began paying back the money but not before other PTA members noticed it was missing and reported it to police.
Talbert, indicted by a grand jury on October 22 on one count of embezzlement, has pleaded guilty.
danj….The average U.S. senior is ranked 18 out of the 25 industrialized nations. We are spending more on education than any other country, and our students are nowhere near the top competion…We are not getting our money’s worth from public education, and it certianly isn’t because we aren’t spending enough!
Dear danj… you are correct in questioning the Government.
As a whole our Public School System does not measure up to other countries. We have a better school system in the Commonwealth especially in Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover. I can speak for these Counties because I know parents of children that attend.
I can say for we get the most bang for the buck because I believe in Henrico it cost around $9,000 a child a year to educate.
In Washington DC it cost $13,000-$14,000 and they are failing.
So just throwing money at the problem is not going to solve the fundamentals.
Education starts at home…. when the parents are involved… the children do better and the school system does better.
Do I believe we have waste in the School bud jet ? Yes I do… because for example… the photo’s by Lifetouch… that was just taken.
Do you know exactly how much is given back to the School System…
What does the contract say… how much are the parents overpaying for the pictures?
Does anybody know exactly how much of your Photographs money is going back to Henrico county.
Where is the money going to and what for?
Ask questions…and find out.
Blueinaredstate how do we know you are not a principle? A P.T.A president or even a School Board Member.
again… I ask…. YES OR NO
Would you spend $24,000 on a Digital Sign that has nothing to do with the education of our Children?
YES OR NO and then we let everybody in this forum either agree or disagree.
Let me remind you… we have children who are coming to school hungry…
Parents loosing their jobs… Homes being foreclosed….
and the P.T.A’s are raising money for Digital Signs….
When will this craziness stop?
Dear Blueinaredstate.. I appreciate your comments.. I have one comment to add..why do you hide behind your name. Tell Us who you are..are you afraid?
I am not bitter… I find it apprehensive able that the P.T.A. approved a $24,000 sign that was not their money. It was cookie dough money…and other fund raising money raised by the children and other parents that had no CLUE that the Total cost of the Sign would be that high.
As respects to the parents of the P.T.A. picking on children…yes..I do believe we have a problem because when my child comes home and tells me that one of the kids in his class would get him in trouble JUST BECAUSE…they know how and his parent is on the P.T.A.
Then see how the class structure is worked out… the P.T.A. children always seem to be in the same class together through the years and do not seem to be rotated with other children.
I would love to help the P.T.A and get more involved but they do not need my help or other parents because we see things differently.
So I ask you…. Blueinaredstate tell us who you are…and come out behind the curtain… are you afraid of what might happen to you if you did?
Ask questions would you spend $24,000 on a Digital Sign YES OR NO…
Then ask.. why is Hanover letting at least two schools add one? Why is Chesterfield letting a High School do it and how many other P.T.A groups in Henrico doing fundraisers for a sign and NOT telling the parents.
Each School should be on notice… If you put up a Digital Sign…in this economic environment… Then you have plenty of MONEY.
Don’t come to the taxpayer for anymore help.
Stop taxing us… and do a better job in budgeting and cut the countless number of unnecessary programs.
You already know who I am….most parents already feel the same way I do.. but they don’t want to speak out… because can you guess why? They don’t want their children targeted.
That is why you hide behind the name
Blueinaredstate
Keep questioning government QuestionGovernment. But, let me ask you: Is it so wrong to invest more in our children? How do you know it is not being spent wisely? You give no stats or documentation.
I’m also Blueinaredstate: To respond to Mr. Melancon the statement that I go in once a week to make copies was simply to illustrate that I spend my own time to insure that the third grade teachers have extra time to do what they should be doing. I head a committee that has me at the school two or three times a week. That school, by the way, is not Echo Lake.
Apparently you have some issues there. Obviously you are very bitter and angry about them. One thing you haven’t noted is where the $24,000 came from. I’m betting it didn’t come from the district and your beef is not with them or them commonwealth but your local PTA. Am I right or am I wrong? Why don’t you run for PTA office? Become part of the solution, man! Get involved!
Hey Jack: Don’t compare our schools to China. This country, in its infancy, became a powerful, industrious nation partly because of a public school system that allowed free thought.
The public record shows that increases in educational funding in the Commonwealth have exceeded the rate of growth in students by a factor of 4 for a number of years. If this money were spent wisely, by School Boards, Boards of Supervisors, City Councils, and the bloated staff of elite PhD and EdD officials in our school system’s central offices, much of the financial crisis would not exist.
Yes, codes are better today. However, codes set the minimum standards. Codes do not ensure quality of construction beyond minimum standards.
Yes if are talking about standard materials issued on “cookie-cutter” homes, I would agree with you. However you can still get an all brick home, with slate shingles but iwe don’t need to do that anymore. We can build homes just as structurally sound with less materials and labor due to advancements in materials and building technology. Structurally, I would argue new homes today are built just as solid, if not better, than older homes using less, cheaper materials. Furthermore, they trump older homes in energy efficiency. Yes an older home could be just as energy efficient but you are underestimating the cost and work involved. An older home could require renovations to windows, exterior wall insulation, and HVAC systems upgrades, which can all add up to significant amounts.
From your post before last:
Dollar-for-dollar, give me a pre-war Cape Cod down off Monument Avenue, with a brick exterior, a partial basement and slate roof. New construction uses fast-growing weak pine, and the builders move from one site to the next slapping things together for buyers who don’t know the difference. Yes, the codes have been improved, but that’s not the same as quality of construction –
I agree somewhat. You are correct about builders moving from one site to the next, and buyers not knowing the difference. However, we can still pick what we want in a newly constructed home today. I would take a new home anyday. That way I can seal all exterior walls with polyurethane foam insulation, all brick exterior, waterproof my basement with foundation drainage, and get low-e windows and roll all that cost into one loan, versus renovating an older home. Except for the brick exterior, you wont find any of those other things an older home unless someone has renovated it along the way. Those items, depending on the home, could cost you tremendous amounts of money because of how much demolation and patchwork you have to do to achieve the same end result.
But, I’m not arguing with you. I agree with where you are coming from. Individual craftsmenship was a lot better 50 or 100 years ago. And yes we do slap houses together with cheap finishes today just to turn a quick profit. I’d say you and I are pretty much on the same page.
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