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school divisions on the basis of starting salary; this year, the county was 130th.)
He applauded the state’s goal of improving teacher pay and attracting the best of the college graduates to the teaching ranks, but he castigated the state’s method of providing financial incentives to localities for 10 percent salary hikes. “That’s a very ill conceived notion ... If all Virginia school divisions give 10 percent, what’s the effect? The rich get richer and the poor get poorer . . . You’re widening the gulf (because) obviously, 10 percent applied to a larger figure yields a greater amount.”
If teachers aren’t awarded at least a 10 percent raise again this year, the county will lose $49,000 in “incentive” aid from the state, Mrs. Massie told the supervisors.
But that revenue will be lost next year, Supervisor Newbill Miller pointed out.
And over a two-year period, the decline in state support from the incentive program alone will total $100,000, leaving the county with that amount to make up from local tax dollars for the 1988-89 budget, added Mr. Estes.
According to the superintendent, it is just that dwindling state and federal support that has pushed the local share of the proposed budget up by 23 percent this year. Federal aid for vocational education will plummet dramatically while support for remedial and special education programs continues its downward slide, Mr. Estabrook noted. According to projections, Rappahannock’s enrollment will decline by about three percent again next year, bringing a concurrent decline in “enrollment driven” state aid, the superintendent said.
The decrease in federal and state revenue will total $173,000, he reported. If that amount didn’t have to be made up with local money, if state and federal aid in 1987-88 came in at this year’s level, the local share of the proposed school budget would be up by just $14,158, according to the superintendent.
The message that Richmond is sending to the people of Virginia isn’t altogether accurate, Mr. Estabrook continued. While the General Assembly has increased the amount of basic aid that localities receive per pupil, other categories of state aid have disappeared, he said. “Yes, state revenue is up overall but not by as much as the state would have the public believe.”
Mrs. Massie was critical of another message - the message that goes out to the people of Rappahannock.
Out of necessity, school budgets are built on conservative revenue estimates, she explained. Then when state revenue comes in higher than anticipated, that final June payment - the one that puts receipts over what was budgeted - goes into the county’s general fund. Since it was not included in the budget approved by the Board of Supervisors almost
12 months earlier, it cannot be spent by the School Board, she noted.
“Money earmarked for education
91.6%