Education budget: some ease despite cuts

It could have been worse.

The budget adopted by the state legislature Sunday isn't the worst-case scenario local school divisions feared.

Though the full effects of the state budget aren't clear, there is some good news. Funding for preschool hasn't been slashed. Schools won't be left holding the bag for the entire decrease in funding based on the composite index formula.

But there is still plenty of pain to go around. Class size increases seem assured; layoffs are likely; and Norfolk and Suffolk schools haven't ruled out closing schools yet, officials said Monday.

The education cuts in the legislature's budget will cost Norfolk's public schools about $51.5 million, though the worst-case scenario was nearly $10 million higher, said Chief Financial Officer John Maniscalco.

School officials are discussing closing and merging some schools or cutting programs, he said.

At a recent School Board meeting, the possible mergers of Willoughby and Ocean View grade schools, and of Dreamkeepers Academy and Richard Bowling elementary schools, were mentioned.

Superintendent Stephen C. Jones' proposed budget - premised on a $40 million cut in funding and an increase in fixed costs - called for a cut of 410 jobs, including 135 teaching positions. Maniscalco said the division hasn't yet talked about deeper job losses.

But some are breathing a sigh of relief. At Emily N. Spong Preschool Center in Portsmouth, Principal Frances Gill said she and her staff "are just delighted" to hear local preschool funding won't be drained. While they haven't heard the final fate of their program, "it looks a whole lot better than it looked last week."

Portsmouth school officials now project a $14.2 million shortfall, down from an earlier projection of about $17 million. That could mean a budget of about $134.7 million next school year if the city provides level funding.

Earlier, Portsmouth school leaders proposed cutting about 110 positions through attrition.

In Virginia Beach, Superintendent Jim Merrill said the final budget should allow the school division to avoid laying off any employees.

Thanks in part to a lobbying push led by Virginia Beach, the budget mitigates the effect of a change to the composite index formula, which funds school divisions based on their wealth. The budget restores all of the funding school divisions would have lost in 2011, plus some for the following year.

But the budget requires new employees to contribute 5 percent toward their retirement, and school divisions will have the option to require that contribution from current employees.

"It's another reason not to stay in public education," said Dominic Melito, president of the Virginia Beach Education Association. He called the change a "tax" on public-sector employees.

The cuts are expected to be far worse next year, said Bethanne Bradshaw, spokeswoman for Suffolk public schools, which had expected to

lose about $4 million under a previous version of the 2011 budget. T he actual loss was not yet clear.

Closing schools and reducing or eliminating Early Start programs will return as strategies to balance the next budget, she said.

"Many of the cuts considered for 2010-11 might well be necessary in 2011-12," she wrote in an e-mail.

Pilot writers Steven G. Vegh and Cheryl Ross contributed to this report.

Lauren Roth, (757) 222-5133, lauren.roth@pilotonline.com