Bucking tradition, the Fairfax County School Board trimmed a little from its proposed $1.6 billion budget before sending it the county Board of Supervisors, possibly preempting some of the back-and-forth between the two boards that has become a yearly ritual.
However, not all debate is lost. The two boards are still nearly $12 million apart.
One amendment, in a series approved Feb. 11 by the School Board, reduced funding for the Intervention and Support Program (ISP) by $500,000 and eliminated $17.6 million of a $20 million placeholder, that was created last year in anticipation of a loss in state aid. The changes reduced the School Board's transfer request, the amount the county Supervisors provide for the schools' budget, from 7.9 percent to 6.3 percent. The supervisors, however, set the guideline at 5.3 percent — a difference of about $11.7 million.
"Even though there are other items we'd like to see funded in this budget, I truly believe this is not the time to increase the budget," said School Board member Kathy Smith (Sully), who drafted the amendment. She went on to say the School Board needed to do what it could to be more in line with the transfer guideline set by the supervisors, but acknowledged, the county officials have historically given the schools more than they had originally set.
TWO OTHER AMENDMENTS carved up money anticipated to be saved by the closing of the Franconia special education center and further cut the ISP, which is slated to be overhauled next year.
School Board member Tessie Wilson (Braddock) received support to increase funding for additional instructional assistants for Success By Eight kindergarten classes by $300,000, with $50,000 coming from the closing of the center and an additional $250,000 cut from the ISP. Christian Braunlich (Lee), in turn, was able to secure support for creating a $100,000 placeholder and directing staff to develop a program designed to increase participation in the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology prep course by all students at underrepresented middle schools. The placeholder, again, comes from the savings anticipated by closing the center.
Of the three amendments, only Wilson's was not unanimous, with Smith the only opposition. Robert Frye (At large) was absent from the vote. The amended advertised budget was approved unanimously.
The budget is set to be presented formally to the supervisors April 8 and will be part of public hearings on the county's overall budget. The supervisors are expected to approve the transfer April 28. After which, the School Board will hold more public hearings before finally adopting the budget May 22.
The willingness to make changes to the budget before sending it to the supervisors, in part, is due to the fact the school system is not expecting the major cuts from the state that it was predicting just a few months ago.
"Ordinarily, we don't recognize the actions of the state until [the session is over]," said Jane Strauss (Dranesville), the board's budget and finance chair. She said, however, that with Gov. Mark Warner’s (D) pledge to veto any budget that cuts basic education funding, it is reasonable for the School Board to expect its state funding to stay intact.
Braunlich said the Smith amendment makes "our budget a more realistic and transparent budget. I think this motion reflects what had been reality since January. I think the rancor between the School Board and the Supervisors needs to come to an end."
SCHOOL BOARD member Mychele Brickner (At large), while supporting the amendments and the approval of the advertised budget, raised questions regarding the school system’s increase of non-school based staff. She said budget documents show non-school based staff increased 59 percent while student enrollment increased 10 percent over the past two years.
"We've raised class size twice. I'd like to understand who these people are, where they are and what they do," Brickner said. "The biggest issue at each cluster meeting is class size."
The issue of staff has been one the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers has been questioning as well. According to information released by federation president Judy Johnson, the number of non-school based administrative staff jumped from 466 in 1997-98 to 671 in 2001-02. Johnson also said in a release, the county's class size is the largest in the metropolitan area and in the state, and that more than 6,000 teachers have left the county over the past five years.
Schools Superintendent Daniel Domenech at last week's School Board meeting took issue with the federation saying: "FCFT took the same information [that has been given to the board] and injected administrative positions .... This is not the operating budget. ... It's all the budgets associated with the school system."
The school system has several funds: operating, food and nutrition services, grants and self-supporting programs, adult and community education, debt service, construction, insurance, health and flexible benefits, central procurement, and educational employees' supplementary retirement system of Fairfax County, of which only the debt service fund does not have positions attributed to it.
Brickner has asked the topic of the positions, including job descriptions, be the subject of a budget and finance work session.
In addition, the School Board, last Thursday, awarded a contract to the Gibson Consulting Group to perform an audit of "functional and business processes" in an amount not to exceed $250,000. On Feb. 27, the School Board is slated to award a one-year contract for real-estate advisory services to The Staubach Company in the amount of $60,000. The company is expected to evaluate the school system's current properties and look of opportunities for public-private partnerships, as well as opportunities to lease, sell or swap properties.