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THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2008
Confronting a
harsh reality
On Monday, Superintendent Chappell will
pass on the school board's requested education
budget to the Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors, From there the supervisors will mull it over and in May decide how much money to allot the schools.
As the school board members let go of the budget, they can also brush off their hands after grasping efforts to tame a looming financial crisis - at least for now.
The education budget is by far the county's largest single expense, and as such is a target for residents concerned about rising taxes.
At about this time last year, the school board was catching flak from the public for proposing a $660,000 increase to the budget.
The budget hearing last week, however, had a remarkably different tone. Criticism was little and tempered. Most speakers expressed support for the board. If anything, they worried that the board might not be asking for enough money from the supervisors. And that was with a 3.5 percent pay raise for school employees written into the board’s budget.
The shift in public sentiment might indicate at least an appreciation of the board’s efforts to adjust to the new reality facing Rappahannock schools. That reality is one in which everything is shrinking - student enrollment is dropping, and state funding is getting slashed.
Maybe it was that the board's budget shrunk, too, that kept criticism down. Last Thursday, board members approved a bottom-line request of
53.2%