Education Funding

As you may have heard, this week I launched a "Community Voices" blog to open a broader community discussion about the recent dispute over Delegate Bell's budget amendment and the Revenue Sharing Agreement. It has only been up for a few days and we have already had a number of great ideas and suggestions.

I recently posted this information about the effect of the proposed budgets on the House and Senate sides on education funding for Charlottesville and Albemarle schools to help inform the discussion. The tables below were put together based on a report from the Virginia Board of Education on HB 29 and SB 29, which amend the state budget for FY2010, and HB 30 and SB 20, which are the proposed budgets for FY2011 and FY2012.

The budget bills can be found at the Legislative Information System on the General Assembly website, or at this link: http://leg1.state.va.us/. Links to the House and Senate budget summaries, which explain more specifically where cuts are being made and which policies are being changed, can be found in the "relevant links" box in the right sidebar.

As you can see below, while both bills present deep cuts to K-12 education, the House version has a much greater effect (both with and without Delegate Bell's budget amendment) on our local schools. In the House version--which presently includes the Bell amendment--Charlottesville's state allocation is decreased by 35.5% from 2009 to 2012 levels; Albemarle loses 14.7%. In the Senate version, Charlottesville loses 10.3% and Albemarle loses 8.1%.

As a hypothetical, I have also shown the House budget without the Bell amendment. In this scenario, Charlottesville loses 21.5% and Albemarle loses 20.7%.

STATE EDUCATION FUNDING FOR ALBEMARLE &
CHARLOTTESVILLE (2009-2012)

HOUSE BUDGET
................................(HB 29)............(HB 30)..........(HB 30)...........
...........FY 2009...........FY 2010............FY 2011...........FY 2012.....
Alb......$47,369,639.....$46,725,911*.....$44,331,663.....$40,389,125
Cville..$20,162,267.....$18,313,300*.....$13,992,214.....$12,995,468

*Includes projected federal State Fiscal Stabilization Fund monies

HOUSE BUDGET (without Bell adjustment)
..................................(HB 29)............(HB 30)...........(HB 30)........

..........FY 2009...........FY 2010............FY 2011..........FY 2012......
Alb......$47,369,639.....$46,725,911*.....$41,505,983.....$37,563,445
Cville..$20,162,267.....$18,313,300*.....$16,817,894.....$15,821,148

*Includes projected federal State Fiscal Stabilization Fund monies

SENATE BUDGET
.................................(SB 29)............(SB 30)..........(SB 30)..........
...........FY 2009...........FY 2010...........FY2011............FY 2012......
Alb......$47,369,639.....$46,711,974*.....$43,334,285.....$43,551,171
Cville..$20,162,267.....$18,307,299*.....$18,153,832.....$18,088,680

*Includes projected federal State Fiscal Stabilization Fund monies

I would greatly appreciate your input and engagement in the discussion at the blog. You can submit a comment and follow my posts by going here: http://city-county.blogspot.com or email me at david@davidtoscano.com.

(Electronic mail, March 5, 2010)