Stricter Oversight Sought after Teachers Go Without Pay Raises

By KEITH WALKER
For Potomac Local News

STAFFORD, Va. — There might be a bit of a kerfuffle brewing between the Stafford Board of County Supervisors and Stafford County School Board.

During a budget presentation Tuesday, County Administrator Anthony J. Romanello talked about tax rates, fund balances — or county savings — lower real estate taxes, rising revenues and contingency funds along with a number of other topics.

The supervisors split their questions along several lines early in Romanello’s presentation, but the single subject that got the most attention was the discrepancy between the money the school board wants in Fiscal 2014 and the amount of money the Board of Supervisors is ready to give up.

In a recent budget proposal, the school board asked the supervisors for an additional $18 million for Fiscal 2014.

Romanello’s proposed budget would give the school board $3.2 million more over last year, which he said would pay for a 2-percent pay raise for all Stafford County school employees.

Romanello explained that the county would allocate $1.1 million to the school board with the remainder of the $3.2 million coming from the state and other sources.

Last year the board of supervisors gave $133 million, or 53.85 percent, of its $247 million in revenue to the school board.

According to Aquia District Supervisor Paul Milde, the supervisors understood that an extra $5.1 million the county board allocated to the school board in Fiscal 2013 would go toward school employee raises, but that didn’t happen.

In past years, the board of county supervisors has exercised its prerogative of using “categorical funding” to dictate how the school board spends its share of county revenues.

Hartwood District Supervisor Gary Snellings, who voted last year to suspend categorical funding, said he wouldn’t be voting that way again.

“That was one of the bigger mistakes I’ve made since I’ve been on this board,” Snellings said. “In FY ’11, we categorical funded schools and teachers got a raise. In FY ’12, we categorical funded schools and teachers got a raise.”

Snellings said he didn’t want to give money to the school board in the upcoming fiscal year without assurances that the money would go toward raises.

“I am not going to sit here and have these folks take this money and shift it everywhere else and then come back the following year and point the finger across the street at us,” he said.

Milde, who voted last year to retain categorical finding, echoed Snellings.

“You got rid of categorical funding last year which was a huge mistake,” Milde said. “I would suggest that we might start thinking about taking that one tool we have … to kind of insist that they spend money where we think they should.”

Garrisonville District Supervisor Ty Schieber said he understood the disappointment among the board members over the lack of pay raises last year, but urged his colleagues to withhold their judgment for the time being.

“If we want to budget by number as opposed to budget by requirement … give them an opportunity to talk about why and what they need” Schieber said. “Certainly there’s limitations in terms of resources, but before we pass judgment … we owe a full hearing of it to make sure we understand where they’re coming from.”

Schieber did however seem to balk a bit at $18 million.

“It’s a big number. I get it, but let’s hear them out first,” he said.

According to the county schools’ website, $3.7 million of the $18 million requested increase would go to pay raises. The budget shows that $1.7 million would include spending on school improvements, five additional teachers, three bus drivers and three bus monitors.

Other spending would include roughly $2 million for 43.5 new employees, $656,417 for summer school and $209,000 for fleet services.

For more detailed information on the proposed school budget, visit

stafford.schoolfusion.us. Find “Financial Services” on the left. Click to find “Budgets & Grants” and go “School Board Approved Budgets Summary.”

In a phone interview Wednesday, Stephanie J. Johnson, chair of the school board, said it’s the school board’s responsibility to present a “needs-based” budget the county board.

“Under code … the job of the school board is to present a budget that expresses the needs of the division,” Johnson said. “This is not an attempt to vilify or blame the board of supervisors or embarrass them into giving us more money. We are following what our code requires with a needs-based budget.”

Johnson said school board members understand that money is limited.

“For so many years it has been a battle between what the schools need and what the county could afford. Those two things don’t always match up,” she said.

Categorical funding can also create “cash flow” problems since the school board has to go to the county board every time it wants to transfer money within the school division’s departments, according to Johnson.

“It removes that authority from the school board,” Johnson said. “As a school board member, I don’t like it, but they do have the authority to categorically fund. It is their choice.”

In Fiscal 2013 the school board was freed from categorical funding constraints and took advantage that freedom to use the $5.1 million to replace money taken from “one-time” funding source to pay for raises in 2012.

“In order to replenish that fund, we used the majority to replace the funds we removed from the one-time funding,” she said.

Johnson went on to say that school board members are probably better positioned to know how best to spend money within the school system.

“Sometimes the base knowledge is not there,” she said of county board members.

Johnson also said that the extra money the school board is requesting would also help attract and retain teachers and reduce class sizes.