Deirdre Fernandes
The Virginian-Pilot
©
VIRGINIA BEACH
Six of the top city and school leaders met in private last week to head off a simmering argument.
The week before, the City Council had said it would take $8.8 million in school reserves for city projects. School Board members were livid. Superintendent Jim Merrill complained about the move and then sent an automated phone call about it to parents and employees. Council members were flooded with calls and e-mails questioning their commitment to education.
At the private meeting Monday, Mayor Will Sessoms chastised school leaders for making an issue of the $8.8 million, a small percentage of the division's $628.5 million budget. He asked them to send out a second automated phone call explaining that schools are fully funded.
That message never went out, and the next day, when the council adopted its budget, it changed the process for funding schools, increasing the council's oversight. School Board members were shocked, and some said the maneuver was punishment for complaining about the city taking school reserves.
"I don't know if that is fair," Sessoms said.
Would the City Council have moved ahead with the more restrictive funding process if school leaders had sent out another mass message as requested,
"Probably so," the mayor said. "It's just a better way to keep a handle on where funds are."
Either way, the relationship between the two bodies has reached its lowest point in more than 10 years.
"I'm not satisfied with where we are and where we may be headed," School Board Chairman Dan Edwards said. The last time the two elected groups were at odds like this was in the late 1990s, Edwards said.
Then, the battles were also over budgets and how to use the schools' surplus money. The two boards reconciled after going on a joint retreat.
Edwards and Sessoms met again Thursday to discuss the chilled relationship and the implications of the restrictive funding. Nothing has been resolved, Edwards said. He and other School Board members are calling for better communication and more meetings among the leadership. But several council members said they are ready to move on.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's done. It's over with," Vice Mayor Louis Jones said. "I don't have any hard feelings."
Jones said the City Council did what it had to do.
The differing views on the future may be tied to the unequal relationship between the groups. While School Board members are elected, and education accounts for the bulk of city spending, they don't have taxing authority. The City Council holds the purse strings.
"The buck stops with the city," Councilman Jim Wood said. "We're the ones who have to decide where the money goes."
Faced with another difficult budget looming next year, the relationship needs to warm up, School Board Vice Chairman Bill Brunke said.
"I think if we go into our next budget cycle and there's a perception that the two bodies don't get along, emotions can get in the way of rational thinking," he said.
Deirdre Fernandes, (757) 222-5121, deirdre.fernandes@
pilotonline.com
Aaron Applegate, (757) 222-5122, aaron.applegate@
pilotonline.com
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the real question
The real question for the Mayor and Vice Mayor is did this taking of funds previously designated for school board to bolster your own reserves worth the bad blood you created with the board. I think you are just trying to make them ask for more money so you can bring in a tax increase next year and say the money is going towards schools.
RESERVE. Thank you and have
RESERVE. Thank you and have a nice day. Public schools. If the public wasn't so vested in them, we'd all admit how abysmal this institution has proven itself. Government entitlement does not produce exceptional results; only free market competition does that.
WHATEVER YOU DO - DO NOT GIVE THE SCHOOL BOARD TAXING AUTHORITY!
If you've ever lived in the northeast where it is common for school boards to have taxing authority you'll know where I'm coming from. Under the guise of "it's for the children", school boards in the NE tax the bejesus out of their constituents. Teachers (who by the way work 184 days?) get above average salaries, fat annual raises, way above average benefits (who am I kidding, even our own local government workers get better benefits than virtually ANY civilian business in the area) and sweet pensions, with the "for the children" nonsense ringing in the taxpayer's ears. So all this baloney about the council taking that money back from the VB school board is just that; baloney. They do not set the tax rate and they can spend only what the council allots them. If there is a compelling reason that they can cite that would sway the VB council from using that $8.8M for their own priorities they should make it and stop whining in the press. Man up!
I have a $4-5million savings
I have a $4-5million savings plan. Ask me how!
School Board vs. City Council
I've said it once, I'll say it again...Vote the entire City Council out....come election day, we need to see an entire array of new faces on City Council (Mayor included) - Citizens of Virginia Beach...stand up and don't forget about this shoddy business of taking money from the schools. I don't care if its one dime, they're taking it away from our children's education and we need to stop this...Superintendent Merrill did his duty and notified all parents about the "under-handed" business of City Council. As a parent of a Middle School child, I would expect no less. He has my respect for keeping us informed in a timely manner. NOW LET'S GET CITY COUNCIL OUT OF THERE....
Balderbull!
Look at the numbers, Stargazer. This is one of the times city Council was 100% right on the nose. School board "leadership" acted childish and churlish.
Go back to your stargazing.
The City's departments all "give back" surplus funds at the end of the year. They are all encouraged to spend their monies efficiently. Some do better than others, yet they have no "savings acounts" to offset future funding shortfalls. Get it thru your head, Schools did not lose any money, nor did any funds get taken away from students' education. If Merrill had truly been doing his job, he would not have taken the low approach of contacting parents, especially by using an inappropriate method, to make this a political issue. And he would not have advocated that Schools spend all of its monies, even if they didn't need to do so, just so that there would be none to revert back to the City. And before you ask, I am not in favor of keeping all the councilmembers in office. There seem to be quite a few who have special interests in mind. Open your eyes and see what each of them have done.
You are mistaken. They did
You are mistaken. They did not take a dime from "our children". They took money that was not spent.
For example lets use your home budget, assuming you have one. Let us say you budget X amount for food and groceries. But at the end of the year you didn't spend it all. Yes you may not have eaten as much steak. Perhaps you used more coupons. Maybe it was using generic brands. But at the end of the year there was a significant amount of money left in the "food" budget.
Now your spouse comes and says there is a house repair that you've been putting off because there wasn't enough money in the repair budget and you take the savings from the food budget to make the repair.
Are you taking food our of your childrens' mouth? Of course not, you are simply taking money that wasn't spent. Would you say, well next year I won't be as careful on my grocery shopping? Only if you were not trying to be a good manager of "food" budget.
You need to remember these issues
When election time comes around again. The Beach is certainly not responsive to the will of it's citizenry. They ignore referendums and use a "parent child mentality" when they do business. Sessoms is not good for the Beach and he will stop at nothing to get his way. So, if you don't vote them out, you get what you asked for.
School Funding
The decision to take the 8 million from the city's school does not come as a surprise to this resident of 19 years. City councils decisions have always been to subsidize developers and pork barrel capital projects. School leaders, teachers, residents and students need to get behind a movement to oust these self serving good ole boys. Maybe Virginia Beach needs its very own Tea Party!