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Manassas officials huddle to find school funding solution as residents face massive tax increases starting in 2020

MANASSAS — Record enrollment in Manassas Public Schools is driving the need to build a new elementary school, which could send the city’s tax rate skyrocketing.

Jennie Dean Elementary School is 60 years old and is in need of replacement, outgoing Manassas School Superintendent Dr. Katherine Magouyrk said. Replacing it, however, could require the city council to hike taxes a whopping 14 cents on the dollar, about 13 percent, by 2021 to fund a new $30 million school.
The increase would give the city about $6.7 million a year to fund the school, as well as other “critical unmet needs,” as officials described them.

The news of the potential tax hike comes on the heels of a 3.72 percent tax increase approved this week by the city council that takes effect in the fiscal year 2019 starting July 1, which hiked the average homeowner real estate tax bill to $4,075 percent to cover a promise to provide an additional 2.65 percent school funding increase. Last year, taxes jumped five percent to fund new capital improvement projects like a new police station to be built on South Grant Avenue.

“I don’t see how we increase from 2.65 [percent] and to 13 percent and continue being a city,” warned Marc Aveni, who sits on the city council and chairs the school board — city council joint finance committee.

The council and school board are in the third year of a three-year funding agreement between both governing boards that worked to establish a base budget for city schools. It comes after years of infighting and disagreement in prior years on how to adequately funds city schools.

School officials maintain a new Dean Elementary School is at the top of their capital improvement list and. If they don’t get it, the city could soon be setting aside funds for up to 15 new trailer classrooms to be stationed at the city’s five elementary schools, to include Dean.

“The trailers are a potential band-aid solution, but planning for them has all kinds of other problems to security, aesthetics, etc.,” said Manassas Councilman Ken Elston.

The city’s council and school board met Thursday night for the second of at least three meetings of its joint finance committee to discuss the critical unmet needs of the school division, of which the city council is tasked with funding.

If the new Dean is built, the school capital improvement fund will skyrocket from $3 million to $56 million by 2020, and by another $7 million the following year due to the construction of a new school division central office.

The current 2.65 percent funding agreement is nearing its end, and school officials hope to cement a new funding agreement with the council in June for the following three years.

Instead of a blanket percentage, Elston suggested funding the schools based on the corresponding growth of the city’s budget. So, if the city’s budget increased by one or two percent, that would mean an automatic two percent in automatic new schools funding from the city council. A city budget increase of between three and four percent would equal a 3.5 percent increase for city schools, under Elson’s plan. Anything over 4 percent growth on the city side would mean going back to the current agreed upon percentage, said Elston.

“I like Mr. Elston’s proposal. The numbers are what they are, and they can’t be manipulated,” said Tim Demeria, who sits on the Manassas school board.

Aveni countered, saying funding the schools based on percentages and not their stated needs would set back the two governing boards to a time before the current funding agreement. He recommended the two boards to continue meeting well into June to keep hashing out a funding agreement.

That could mean removing Dean Elementary School from the school division’s capital improvement plan and funding construction of the new budding under a new bond agreement.

Meanwhile, the school division said it would continue to look into which city neighborhoods are producing the newest students, and look for new solutions on how to address the problem.

The joint finance committee will meet again at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 30. The meeting is open to the public.

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