This was an action meeting. The School Board approved several actions briefed at the last meeting. In addition the School Board received an interesting briefing on how falling housing prices will affect their revenue stream.
Musical Presentation: Choral Group From Graham Park Middle School
The students provided a fine performance. Our national anthem is difficult to sing, and they even did that well.
Consent Agenda (passed unanimously)
- Approved payrolls for December in the amount of $40,150,140.91.
- Confirmed the School Board Poll of December 21, 2006 regarding position on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) testing and Virginia’s Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students. What poll? There was no meeting December 21, and the documentation is lacking on the School Board’s Electronic agenda (here). Will have to look into this.
Art Textbook Adoption (passed unanimously)
Adopted new Art Textbooks for grades K – 12.
LEP Testing Resolution (passed unanimously)
The School Board has a problem. The Federal Government wants the school to test students who cannot speak English with tests written in English. Here is the resolution.
WENTWORTH GREEN MIDDLE SCHOOL BOUNDARIES – 2007 (passed unanimously)
Here are the options the School Board considered (Jan 3 brief). PWC Public Schools has also provided a web site with more details. The School Board approved the following.
- That the Prince William County Public School Board, having conducted a Public Hearing on January 17, 2007 as required by Va. Code Section 22.1-79(8), approve the boundary recommendation Plan 2 for 2007-08, as detailed in the “Wentworth Green” Boundary Planning Committee Report.
- That current seventh-graders at the affected middle schools be permitted to remain at their current school for 2007-08 to finish their middle school careers, providing their own transportation.
Chairwoman Beauchamp noted that the vote was in accord with the recommendation from the Haymarket Town Council.
The School Board chose the name for the school: Gainesville Middle School. Richardson, after discussions with the admiral’s family, proposed the new elementary school on the Mill Park property be named Admiral Samuel L. Gravely, Elementary School. The name was approved.
FY 2007 Budget Review and FY 2008 Budget Outlook
The School Board received the second quarter budget report for Fiscal Year 2007. Revenues had nine million dollar shortfall. Fortunately, due to the mild weather and revenue from other sources, expenditures did not exceed revenue. Those other revenue sources included several million dollars carried over from last year and a couple million dollars recovered after refinancing the school system’s debt. At this point, the financial managers expect to break even for this fiscal year.
The Fiscal Year 2008 portion of this brief began with an explanation of how the county figures out your property tax. This is the value of your home divided by 100 and then multiplied by the tax rate. Currently the tax rate is 0.758. In the example given to the School Board, the tax for this year on a $400,000 home would be $3032.
Based upon the original five year plan, the school system expected to spend about 853 million dollars in Fiscal Year 2008 as compared with 793 million dollars in Fiscal Year 2007. The financial managers considered four scenarios given this expectation.
- With a flat tax rate (0.758 tax rate), revenues would be 38 million dollars short of expenditures (assessments have decreased).
- With a flat tax bill (0.790 tax rate), revenues would be 28 million dollars short of expenditures.
- With 3.5 % increase to meet inflation (0.817 tax rate), revenues would be 19 million dollars short of expenditures.
- With the original revenue projection (5.9 percent increase in revenues and a 0.836 tax rate), revenues would be 12 million dollars short of expenditures.
Currently the Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) is planning to adopt a flat tax rate. Because they have to finance a bunch of new schools, that poses a problem for the school board. Without an increase in revenue, the School Board will max out on the debt the BOCS allows them to take on. Note that taking on too much debt relative to revenue would affect the county’s AAA rating. About 50 million dollars in Capital Improvement Program (CIP) projects will have to be eliminated (future bond sales). Projects that are already moving forward will not be stopped.
Dr. Otaigbe ask the Superintendent Walts to address the issue. The Superintendent noted that the school system has enjoyed about six years of significant budget increases. Without such increases, the only place he can significantly reduce costs is by reducing the amount of money spent on employees.
Johns spoke and asked about when financial staff learned about the affect on the debt ceiling. They said this became apparent as a result of the flat tax rate. Johns then took some pain to make it clear that revenue limitations are set by the county, not the School Board. Nonetheless, he also made it clear that the School Board and the BOCS had to work together.
Lattin pointed out that the BOCS has has adopted the Flat Tax Rate, but Richardson noted that the Flat Tax Rate budget is still for planning purposes only. Beauchamp spoke up and said that the BOCS will make a final decision on the tax rate on April 24, 2007. However, she also noted that the BOCS voted 7 – 0 to use the Flat Tax Rate for planning purposes.
When Covington queried the Superintendent Walts, he made it clear that the school budget will be developed against the Flat Tax Rate. The reduction in expected revenue does not mean budget cuts, but it does means less money available to spend.
In response to a query from Beauchamp, Superintendent Walts noted that the 5.9 percent increase includes both inflation and the increase in the number of students.
Based upon a flat tax rate, the budget will be available on February 7, 2007.
Comments from Superintendent Walts
The fourteen reviewers from the Southern Colleges and Schools Association is recommending Prince William County’s division-wide accreditation. This is a first. We should have final validation and a report in about 30 days.
Prince William County is doing well teaching LEP students and exceeded state targets for the third consecutive year. He proudly noted that we have greater numbers of non-English speaking students that we are teaching every year and teaching to the same standards as English speaking students. 55 percent of the LEP students were reclassified in the past year as non LEP students (I guess that is a good thing.).
