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.

Local governments aren’t likely to escape the pain when the General Assembly attempts to eliminate an estimated $3.5 billion hole in the next two-year budget. That estimate does not include the losses faced by local school districts to replace federal stimulus money that will dwindle next year and then disappear entirely in the second year of the budget.

This is not an easy time for local governments. The recession has eroded budgets, which in certain circumstances has caused cuts in necessary programs that touch citizens’ lives. Earlier this year Hanover County received news that, given the overall economic climate, qualifies as extraordinary. Standard & Poor’s upgraded the county’s bond rating to AAA. Friends, that’s tops. There is no higher rating. Higher bond ratings translate into lower interest rates; lower interest rates translate into taxpayer savings.

Richmond Times-Dispatch Exclusive: Six-figure wages reach from big localities to tiny King and Queen.