By Michael Copley
Staff Writer

The Powhatan County School Board will have to rework the “preliminary spending plan” it approved last week because the plan hinges on an increase in funding from the county that was never formally agreed to by the board of supervisors (BOS), supervisors said Thursday.

Based on information provided by School Superintendent Dr. Margaret S. Meara, school board members worked March 3 to shore up what they saw as a $2.1 million budget gap.

Materials presented at the school board budget workshop showed county funding for schools in excess of $20 million for next fiscal year, based, the information indicated, on a “quasi agreement” with the county for the “return” of $1 million. 

In a Feb. 24 letter to the board of supervisors, Meara requested a $1 million funding increase for the schools- a return of surplus funds from last year and an elimination of planned local-share revenue reductions for next year.

But Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert R. Cosby told the schools in February that supervisors would not be able to respond to the request until they had a clearer sense of how elements of the still-pending state budget would impact the county.

At a March 4 county budget workshop, School Board Chairman Tim Gresham told supervisors that the school board had simply tried to fulfill its constitutional duty to supply the BOS with their funding needs for next year.

District 1 Supervisor Joe Walton objected because the needs expressed in the report from schools, and the cuts the school board made March 3, were dependent on money that Walton said no one agreed to.

After settling on a list of cuts that total more than $1.48 million, the school board voted to implement a scaled reduction to employees’ salaries to cover a remaining $646,000 shortfall.

Under that plan, a 3 percent reduction would be applied to the salaries of the superintendent, assistant superintendents, directors, assistant directors and members of the school board. Principals, assistant principals, teachers, supervisors and coordinators will see a 2 percent salary reduction, and all other employees will take a 1 percent pay cut.

One part-time teaching position, a physical education teacher, would be eliminated.

Meara was careful to call it a “preliminary spending plan,” not a final budget, because she said the numbers the schools have to work with are subject to change.

State legislators indicated in February that the county’s school system will likely receive between $800,000 and $1 million in unanticipated state funding, said school board member Jason Moore, but that money was not considered during the schools budget discussion. 

School board members agreed that if more money comes down from the state, it should be used first to do away with the agreed to salary reductions and to reinstate the part-time position that would have been lost.

The board of supervisors voted March 4 to hold the county’s education funding at $19,074, 657, at least for now- that’s $200,000 more than what was budgeted by the county for education last year.

At the beginning of the March 3 meeting, Gresham said the school board was “attempting to take care of our core functions” and make the necassary cuts while minimizing “the pain to students and staff.” In an email March 4, Gresham wrote that “A reduction of $1,000,000, as [the board of supervisors] discussed tonight will without [a] doubt result in layoff[s] of perhaps 35 instructional assistants.”

Still, county officials say the requested $1 million was never agreed to and cannot be considered a reduction.

Supervisors approved a motion by Walton on March 4 to advertise a tax rate of 80 cents. The motion also set aside over $400,000 in revenue sharing funds, an amount comprising money that resulted from the county’s refinancing of existing debt and also from revised collection rates. Supervisors said the funds that were set aside will provide “wiggle room” to respond to a worst case state budget scenario.

Cosby said he supports the 80 cent tax rate because leaders don’t yet know how state funding will shake out, but he voted against Walton’s motion, saying it should have been made earlier in the budget process.

Funding for schools was approved for advertisement at just over $19 million.

A public hearing will be held March 22.

Cosby said the public hearing will let residents “tell us what they think.”