[BurleyBulletin] March 14, 2006: , Volunteers Needed, Last Opportunity for Public Input on Tax Rate
Shelley Payne
shp33 at earthlink.net
Wed Mar 14 11:47:07 EDT 2007
The Burley Bulletin
March 14, 2007
Inside This Issue...
* Volunteers Needed for Dance this Friday
* Last Opportunity for Public Input on Tax Rate
* Mark Your Calendar...
____________________________________________________________________________
_________________
Volunteers Needed for Dance this Friday
Please contact MM Gardiner at HYPERLINK
"mailto:EMMYSHOW at aol.com"EMMYSHOW at aol.com if you can help set up dance
decorations this Friday. Right now she only has two volunteers and she only
has two hours to get things set up! Thank you!
Last Opportunity for Public Input on Tax Rate
Tonight at 6:00 PM in the County Office Building’s Lane Auditorium, parents
will have the opportunity to speak to the Albemarle County Board of
Supervisors (BOS) about the proposed budget. This will be the last
opportunity for parents to speak to the BOS prior to the April 4 Public
Hearing to set the Tax Rate. The BOS is receiving tremendous pressure to
reduce the tax rate due to the increased property assessments over the past
two years. However, even though property assessments have risen by 30% over
the past two years, real estate taxes are only 37% of the county’s overall
budget. The initial budget proposed by the county executive was only a 5.6%
increase over last year and maintained the tax rate at $0.74. That increase
reflects the impact of continued growth in our area as well as increased
costs that we are all familiar with such as fuel and health care.
Here are the impacts to our school division if the following tax rates are
adopted. Please note that this information was compiled by me (Shelley
Payne) from a variety of sources. I have done my best to provide accurate
information, but if there are any errors, they are mine alone. Thank you.
If the tax rate is set at $0.72 (a $0.02 reduction)
This will allow the school division to maintain funding for baseline
programs and maintain market competitive salaries for teachers and
classified staff. They will also be able to maintain mandated operational
increases, add teaching staff and operational funding to accommodate growth,
and provide additional funding for professional development, technology and
intervention/prevention staff. However, they would only be able to do this
by making cuts in operational funding.
Estimated Budget Reductions: 2006/2007: $984,000
20007/2008: $1.62 Million Total Reductions: $2.6 Million
If the tax rate is set at $0.70 (a $0.04 reduction)
There will be no additional funding as stated above, nor will it be possible
to maintain current funding. Instead, the school division will have to
reduce spending. The largest expense in our schools is salary, so in order
to achieve the significant budget reductions this tax rate would cause, the
schools would need to reduce the number of teachers and teaching
assistants. This will lead to increased class sizes in grades 4-12 to 25 or
more students on average (federal guidelines limit class sizes in grade
K-3). In addition, the number of classified staff would be reduced and
operational (building services) reductions would need to be put in place.
Estimated Budget Reductions: 2006/2007: $1.97 Million
20007/2008: $3.41 Million Total Reductions: $5.38 Million
If the tax rate is set at $0.68 (a $0.06 reduction)
In addition to the above reductions, the schools would need to reduce
teacher salaries, eliminate the purchase of needed textbooks, make even
further cuts in teaching positions including AP staffing and Pre-K services
and eliminate a portion of computer equipment replacement. Doing all of
this still wouldn’t be sufficient -- the schools would still need to find an
additional $1 million in cuts!
Estimated Budget Reductions: 2006/2007: $2.95 Million
20007/2008: $5.2 Million Total Reductions: $8.15
Million
Certainly these sort of cuts are painful in the short term, but most
importantly they have long term impacts. When cuts are made in staffing and
salary, in combination with increased class size, we lose high quality
teachers. Albemarle is fortunate to have many good, experienced teachers
and surrounding school divisions are only too happy to hire them away from
us. The BOS needs to keep a long term perspective and make sure that we don
’t make short sighted decisions that will lead to the even more expensive
task of trying to hire good teachers to replace the ones we will lose if
these cuts are put in place.
Please let the BOS know your thoughts about the tax rate. As you can see,
the above cuts to the real estate tax will cause cuts in School Division
funding totaling up to $8.15 Million. In addition, any tax rate decrease
will affect the current school budget, so we will feel the impacts both this
school year and next.
To contact the Board of Supervisors please send your e-mail to HYPERLINK
"mailto:bos at albemarle.org"bos at albemarle.org. In addition you can send
individual messages to each supervisor from the following links:
* HYPERLINK
"http://www.albemarle.org/department.asp?department=bos&relpage=2891"Lindsay
G. Dorrier, Jr. -- Scottsville District (south of Rt. 250 East and east of
Rt. 20 South)
* HYPERLINK
"http://www.albemarle.org/department.asp?department=bos&relpage=2893"Kenneth
C. Boyd Rivanna District (north of Rt. 250 East and east of Rt. 29 North)
* HYPERLINK
"http://www.albemarle.org/department.asp?department=bos&relpage=2892"Dennis
S. Rooker Jack Jouett District
* HYPERLINK
"http://www.albemarle.org/department.asp?department=bos&relpage=2888"Sally
H. Thomas Samuel Miller District
* HYPERLINK
"http://www.albemarle.org/department.asp?department=bos&relpage=7767"David
Slutzky Rio District
* HYPERLINK
"http://www.albemarle.org/department.asp?department=bos&relpage=2894"David
C. Wyant White Hall District
____________________________________________________________________________
_________________
Mark Your Calendar...
* Wednesday, March 14, 1:00 – 5:00 PM (Schools 1:00 – 2:00 PM),
County Office Building, BOS Budget Worksession
* Wednesday, March 14, 6:00 PM, County Office Building, BOS Meeting
(sign up to speak before 6:00 PM)
* Friday, March 16, 4:15 – 7:00 PM, St. Patrick’s Day Dance
* Thursday, March 22, Snow Make-up Day, SCHOOL IN SESSION
* Friday, March 23, Staff Development – NO SCHOOL for Students
* Friday, March 23, Staff Appreciation Breakfast
____________________________________________________________________________
_________________
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