The Loudoun County School Board faces an uphill climb as it seeks to restore nearly $20 million in funding stripped from its proposed operating budget this month.
On March 16, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors identified about $30 million in school spending that it decided should be eliminated from the schools' operating budget.
Among the targeted items was $20 million in unspent funds from the previous year that the school system had wanted to carry over into the new budget. Supervisors also voted to slash $5.5 million that the school system had set aside to pay for a 1 percent pay raise for school employees.
In a budget work session Monday, supervisors voted to reinstate about $4.6 million in funds, taking into account updated figures related to a last-minute increase in state education aid.
Even with the new funds, the school system estimates that it has been left with a $19.3 million gap, or about 2.5 percent of its $765 million proposed operating budget. The school system had been seeking a $25 million increase in local tax funding from the county, which school officials said is necessary to accommodate enrollment growth.
School Board Chairman John Stevens (Potomac) said he was meeting with supervisors to try to persuade them to change their minds and restore the money. Otherwise, Stevens said, the school system might have to cut as many as 270 full-time positions, or 3 percent of its workforce, to make up the gap.
Stevens said the School Board is likely to draw from a list of cuts suggested by school staff members in January. Positions on the list include athletic directors, reading assistants, teaching assistants, middle school deans and substitutes. He said students might also lose field trips and be asked to pay larger fees to participate in sports.
Some county supervisors said in interviews last week that they were unlikely to change their votes.
"The majority of the board members feel there is room to cut in the budget without impacting the classroom," Supervisor Andrea McGimsey (D-Potomac) said.
The county's total proposed budget this year is $1.5 billion, including costs for the school system. County officials started this year's budget process with a projected $191 million shortfall because of declining property values.
County and school officials had also feared losing $34 million in state revenue. Under a proposal from outgoing governor Timothy M. Kaine (D), the state would have stopped a scheduled adjustment of the local composite index, the complex formula used to determine the cost of education in each locality and how much should be covered by local government.
Lobbying efforts by School Board members and a letter-writing campaign asking Richmond lawmakers to reverse its course succeeded. Instead of losing money, Loudoun is set to receive about $21 million in additional state aid related to the adjustment.
The county got another revenue boost when state lawmakers made a decision to allow the county to postpone contributions to the Virginia Retirement System for teachers and administrators, which yielded $29 million in unexpected funds. But in a series of votes over the past two weeks, county supervisors chose to keep the revenue in the county budget rather than passing it on to the schools, angering defenders of the school system.
Defending their moves, supervisors said they wanted to use the revenue to avoid deep cuts in county services, such as public safety and libraries. They also said they want to use the added revenue to hold down property tax rates, particularly when many Loudoun homeowners are losing jobs or bracing for foreclosure.
Supervisor Kelly Burk (D-Leesburg), who voted against the biggest school budget cuts, said there aren't enough votes to restore the funding.
"It's not worth bringing it back up again if you don't have the votes to change it," Burk said.
Stevens said he has met with supervisors Sally R. Kurtz (D-Catoctin) and Stevens Miller (D-Dulles) to try to build support for giving the school system more money.
"Right now, I haven't been given any information that would lead me to conclude that the best thing for Loudoun County would be to spend another $25 million on top of what we already allocated to the schools," Miller said.
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