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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Why does Rappahannock County get a smaller percentage of its costs for schools from the state than surrounding counties? The answer is because of the Local Composite Index (LCI), and Assistant Superintendent Robert Chappell explained how that works to the Board of Supervisors last week.
Rappahannock’s LCI is .6507. This makes Rappahannock the 11th wealthiest locality in the state, according to this formula. Fauquier County has a LCI of .6370, 13th in the state. Of the surrounding counties, Culpeper has a LCI of .4439; Warren’s is .4081; Madison’s is .3936, and Page County has a LCI of .3288.
The wealthiest localities in the state according to this formula are Arlington, Bath, Loudoun, Surry, Alexandria, Fairfax City, Falls Church and Williamsburg. All have LCI’s of .8000, the highest value the state assigns to any locality. If it weren’t, some of these localities might have LCI’s over one and have to send money to the state for education.
Two other localities have LCI’s higher than Rappahannock’s. Louisa’s is .7613, and Fairfax County’s is .7367.
Most of these localities are in the rapidly developing Northern Virginia area. Three of the ones which aren’t, Bath, Surry and Louisa, have Virginia Power generating plants to add to their tax base.
There are two components of the LCI, one based on average daily membership (ADM) and one based on population. The ADM component counts two-thirds and the population component one-third.
Both of these components are based on a combination of true value of real estate, adjusted income and taxable retail sales. For each component real estate values count for half, income for 40 percent and retail sales for 10 percent.
Each part of the formula is based on an index which compares the wealth behind each student or person in Rappahannock County with the wealth behind each student or person in the state as a whole. For example, according to figures used by the state, the true value of real estate in Rappahannock County in 1987 (the date used this year for all these money values) was approximately $439 million.
The ADM in 1988 (the year used in computing the LCI) was 937. For the state as a whole the real estate was valued at $243 billion and the state ADM was 972,400. The index based on these figures is 1.87. In other words there is 87 percent more wealth in real estate values in back of each student in Rappahannock County than there is for the average student in the state.
The similar index for wealth in real estate values for population is slightly less dramatic, 67 percent more wealth per person in Rappahannock than for the average person in the state.
When the indices are computed for income, Rappahannock again comes out above average, but much less so than for real estate. Rappahannock’s income per student in ADM is 16 percent higher than is typical for students in the state, and the income per person is only three percent higher.
When wealth is computed for taxable retail sales, Rappahannock is far below the average for the state. The resources behind each student in Rappahannock County based on retail sales are only 35 percent of those available for the typical student in the state, and only 32 percent of the state average per person.
The LCI is used to compute basic state aid. There are other categories of state funding for education, but basic aid provides most of the funds. To figure basic aid the state starts with a number it uses to represent the cost per pupil for funding the state requirements, called Standards of Quality (SOQ). For Rappahannock County
93.8%