Fairfax Supervisors, School Board React to Proposed Budget for County Schools

Fairfax County School Board members and teachers are praising teacher raises, hires and other plans to address the system’s rising enrollment — but some officials say his request for an increase of 8.4 percent in county funds, which dictates , is unrealistic.

"Boy, 8 percent sounds like quite a jump,"  Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bulova said Friday. "We need to be sensitive to the affordability of taxes to our residents. … An 8 percent increase seems like a stretch."

Steve Greenburg, president of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, acknowledged Dale's proposal was facing a tough fight.

"I don't think it does any good to be anything but optimistic," he said.

Dranesville Supervisor John Foust said he thought the nearly nine percent increase in the county schools budget "is unrealistic."

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has final approval of the schools budget.The schools budget is 53 percent of the county's general fund.

"It unrealistic to expect a nine percent increase," Foust said Friday. "We have to increase the schools budget with a cost of living" increase he said.

He added that County Executive Tony Griffin had informally talked about perhaps a five percent increase."That's kind of high, but we'll start at the point."

Foust added that Dale "has to figure out how to accomplish the same level of services with less than a nine percent increase."

Last year the schools asked county supervisors  for an additional  $50 million for teacher pay raises. The supervisors said no and the school system found the money, Foust recalled.

County Executive Anthony Griffin won't release his budget proposal for the county, including a transfer amount for schools, until Feb. 28. Supervisor John Foust, echoing what Dale told reporters earlier on Thursday, said Griffin has informally mentioned a 5 percent increase in the county's transfer.

The supervisors have the final approval of the schools and county budgets.

The county's transfer to the schools, funded largely by real estate and personal property taxes, accounts for nearly 71 percent of Dale's proposed budget; about 53 percent of the county's budget goes to the schools.

When presenting the budget to the board Thursday night, Dale told school board members several unpredictable budget factors were in play, among them, the amount of the county transfer and state-level cuts included in Gov. Bob McDonnell's budget, which won't be finalized until April.

That would amount to an increase of about $80 million, instead of the $135.4 million increase Dale included in his proposal.

Bulova said the county's recovery is "very tepid," insufficient to meet all of the "pent-up demands" including more funding for human services, public safety and transportation.

"Managing expectations is going to be a major challenge during this budget," said Bulova, who added she hadn't yet been fully been briefed on the details of Dale's proposal. "I am sympathetic to the needs of the school system with a growing student population that they're struggling to serve, so some increase is probably reasonable in order for them to meet that challenge. … It’s important we continue to maintain the kind of excellent school system that makes everything else work well."

Other reaction from school board members:

• Patty Reed (Providence) said after years of talking about teacher compensation and workload, Dale's proposal "put our money where our mouth is" on the issues; improving both has been near the top of the board's priority list for several years.

• "There's a whole lot to like in this budget, if we can get the funding," said Dan Storck (Mount Vernon), whose district is often home to many of the system's minority, disadvantaged or underperforming students. The budget, particularly the reinstatement of summer school, would "truly make a difference for our neediest kids," he said.

• Elizabeth Schultz (Springfield) told Dale the projected population and demographic shifts concerned her, saying the data the board has received over the past several years didn't give an adequate picture of what was coming.

        "The concern is that demographics drive everything, how many teachers  we  need, the curriculum we have," she said. "Maybe we have to be humble enough that if we don't possess those strengths and do it well then we need to look [elsewhere]. I'm going to be very much encouraging us to improve our ability to budget based on our ability to predict who we're going to have going forward."

Dale noted the system hired a full-time demographer within the past two years.

• Greenburg said he was happy to see Dale's proposal addressed teacher workload and tuition reimbursement, among the improvements to compensation, after