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The $3,828,504 school budget for 1988-89 presented at Tuesday’s special School Board meeting represents a balance between meeting “goals and aspirations for the educational program” and being “as fiscv4iy conservative as possible,” according to Superintendent David Gangel.
It also represents an increase of 12 percent over this year’s $3,407,792 school allocation and a 10 percent increase — from $1,727,950 to $1,903,281 — in local funds. Under current assessments whereby each cent on the tax rate brings in $22,000, that increase in the county’s share of school costs works out to about eight cents more on the local real estate levy.
Howver, Dr. Gangel repeatedly emphasized that the revenue picture remains unclear. With two weeks left in the General Assembly session, “it’s impossible to tell exactly What the funds (from the state for education) will be,” he said. And this year, the picture is fuzzed further by having the Secretary of Education, ' rather than the state Department of Education staff, working closely with the governor on the education budget for the next biennium, Dr. Gangel noted. The funding level hasn’t been altered significantly “but what the funds are earmarked for ,*4ias drastically changed . . . They’re taking a whole fresh look at how the funds should be used, but it doesn’t add up because some programs are already in place.”
As an example, he cited announcements from Richmond that state aid will cover 100 percent of the health insurance premiums for school employees, but without providing any additional funding for this. “They’re just dividing the pie different ways,” he explained, indicating that state money formerly directed to other categories of edu. cation programs will now go to health insurance instead.
Also, he said, the state is counting projected increases in local sales tax revenue — previously listed as a miscellaneous funding source — in the increase in state aid.
In another example. Dr. Gangel , told the board that part of the money local school divisions receive for transportation and vocational education has been moved from categorical to basic aid; as categorical aid, it . was allocated on the basis of enrollment, but as basic aid, it is allocated through the composite index, a fortnula heavily weighted for land values which is used by the state to determine a locality’s ability to pay ifor education. ^ The “richer” the county in peracre value, the higher the composite index figure, and the greater the ^hare of school costs which must be i covered with local tax dollars. On j'the basis of its new assessment, j Rappahannock is “considered i
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