Cuts span education system

Times-Dispatch Staff Writers

From kindergartners to college students, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine yesterday proposed hundreds of million of dollars in education cuts that span the grades.

For K-12 schools, Kaine proposed capping state funding of school support staff, largely administrative and clerical positions, to save $340 million in fiscal 2010.

He would save $27.5 million by scrapping state-funded school-construction grants. He also would pluck $55 million in Virginia Lottery funds, now directed to school construction, to cover instructional costs.

Virginia's four-year colleges and universities would see their 2010 base budgets cut 15 percent under the proposal, though Kaine's plan would add $26 million for need-based financial aid for college students.

Under the 15 percent reduction, Virginia Commonwealth University faces a loss of about $30.3 million; the University of Virginia, $23 million; and the College of William and Mary, about $7.3 million.

"It's not nice, but it's fair," VCU Rector Thomas Rosenthal said of the plan.

Leonard Sandridge, U.Va.'s chief operating officer, said the university would be doubling its efforts to improve efficiency to reduce spending.

He said the work force -- which amounts to about two-thirds of U.Va.'s operating budget -- will be managed through attrition. But he said he'd be less than honest if he said layoffs weren't a possibility, and that staffing would be addressed each quarter.

Kaine gave a break to the state's community colleges and the two-year Richard Bland College, with 10 percent reductions. For the Virginia Community College System, that's a $40 million cut for 2010.

"This is the beginning of the process," said VCCS spokesman Jeffrey Kraus, noting that system representatives are "constantly having conversations" with legislators about the community college role of "helping people get back to work."

The General Assembly will take up Kaine's reduction proposals in January.

The state uses formulas to determine payments toward public school teachers and other instructional personnel. It has not used a similar method to cap positions among support staff, and as a result, Kaine said, the growth among those positions has been faster than among state-funded instructional staff.

He is proposing the state fund one support position for every 4.03 instructional positions and has recommended a way to help school districts most affected by the change.

Charles Pyle, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education, said the objective was "to make sure no school district suffered a reduction of more than $403.90 per pupil."

Virginia Education Association President Kitty Boitnott said things could have been worse; the organization had asked that any cuts be temporary with the hope of seeing that money again.

"We're already 37th in the nation in per-pupil spending, so by making this particular cut more permanent we believe we've created a deeper hole we have to climb out of when things do start to turn around," she said.

Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or .

Contact Karin Kapsidelis at (804) 649-6119 or .