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By Matt Pelkey Rappahannock News Staff Writer
The Rappahannock County School Board was met with silence during the public comment portion of its Tuesday session.
The reprieve did not last long, however, as board members soon dug back into the budget discussions that have dominated meetings in recent months.
Superintendent Dr. Robert Chappell presented a memo from Amy Silver O'Leary, the. director of granlg and partnerships withr the Headwaters Foundation. O’Leary helped craft answers to budget-related questions posed by school board members. Below are excerpts in the questionand-answer format of the memo:
Question: Are the Rappahannock County Public Schools overstaffed?
Answer: “The efficiency review essentially said that our schools were efficient. Compared with its ‘peer group’ of school divisions with similar numbers of students, RCPS had below average numbers of staff... per student.”
Question: How do Rappahannock County's
Tax
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that same amount in county binds. McCarthy is proposing $220,709 in additional local funding. He said that is the most the county can provide without raising taxes.
If the supervisors approve the school budget as McCarthy has recommended, the school system s budget for fiscal 2009 will be $11,813,799 - a 2.3 percent decrease from last year's budget of $12,096,934.
McCarthy is proposing that the $70,000 requested for roof replacement at the school come from the county's General Fund surplus. The remainder of the $220,709 increase can come from a combination of the annual increase the county receives in general revenues, savings the county has experienced from closing a cell at the Amissville l andfill and savings on the Farmland Preservation Program made possible by new state legislation.
“If the supervisors do not approve the School Board’s budget as presented, the School Board will have no choice but to reduce the budget by an additional $250,000,” said Superintendent Robert Chappell in a written statement. “The School Board alreadV reduced costs by $358,000.”
The school budget is also decreasing as a total percentage of the county budget. Last year, the school budget accounted for 59.6 percent of total county expenditures. This year, as the budget is proposed it accounts for 53.6 percent of total expenditures.
While the school budget will likely decrease, the proposed county budget for this year is up to $22,037,075 from $20,292,876 last year. The change represents an 8.6 percent increase.
There are, as McCarthy put it. an “unusual number” of capital projects requiring spending increases in fiscal •2008.
The list includes closing
55.8%