By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON

By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON

Rappahannock Newt Staff Writer

"Clearly, with the administration of our budget for the rest of this year, I’m going to have a chance to be other than everyone’s best friend!” said Superintendent Robert Estabrook as he reported to the School Board last week on tightening financial constraints.

It’s a fiscal vise with pressure on both sides - income and outgo, according to the superintendent of schools. The 1986-87 budget for Rappahannock’s public schools was based on a projected "average daily membership” of 948 students. Currently, the ADM for the high school stands at 368 and for the elementary school at 554 for a total of922.

"I wish we could see an escalation,” Mr. Estabrook told the School Board last Tuesday, pointing out that ADM determines the amount of basic aid for education Rappahannock will get from the state. “But we’re not seeing an increasing figure there,” the superintendent said, describing the shortfall from the lower enrollment as “a considerable loss of revenue.”

The state takes ADM as of March 1 to determine basic aid payments to local school divisions. At this year’s $2,044 per student, if enrollment doesn’t pick up within the next two weeks, Rappahannock will stand to lose $33,144 over what was anticipated when this year’s budget was drafted last April.

On the other side of the ledger, maintenance expenditures have been higher than projected, the superintendent said. “Sixty-five percent of our maintenance funds have been expended and the year is only 58 percent gone.” The money has been spent for circulation pump motors for the high school boilers, a hot water heater for the elementary school’s dishwasher, ceiling fan motors in the high school gym, repairs to steam tables in both cafeterias and pneumatic controls for the elementary school’s heating system.

“I’m awfully fearful, particularly when I look at the age of the high school, that perhaps we’re seeing the beginning of a pattern,” the superintendent said. “We have a lot of equipment dating back to 1959 when the high school was built.”

Mr. Estabrook reported that an inspection of mechanical equipment at both schools is now being conducted for the purpose of predicting where additional maintenance problems may arise.

No help from the supervisors

To offset unexpected maintenance expenditures, “I’d hoped to show you a bottom line some $4,000 healthier than it is,” the superintendent told the School Board members, noting that the Board of Supervisors had denied their request to retain $4,214 derived from a refund of an insurance overcharge and proceeds from a recent auction of old school vehicles and equipment.

"I don’t feel good at all about