Board Requests 42% Funding Increase

By Mason Adams mason.adams@roanoke.com (540) 981-3149

The Franklin County School Board voted unanimously Monday to propose a 2007-08 spending plan that includes a 42 percent increase in its request for funding from the county.

Last year, the school board received a little more than $25 million from the county. This year it’s requesting nearly $36 million.

But according to two supervisors, that’s unlikely to be granted. Gills Creek Supervisor Russell Johnson told a group of Franklin County Republicans on Saturday that granting the school board’s request would require an increase of the real estate tax rate by more than 20 cents.

“That’s concerning to me,” Johnson said.

The motion to accept the budget proposal was made by at-large school board member William Helm, and the board approved it unanimously.

The bulk of the $10.7 million increase comes from three items:

n A $4.6 million increase in salaries and fringe benefits for school employees, including $1.1 million in new positions. Of the $4.6 million, $2.2 million is for teacher raises.

n $2.2 million to extend school bus routes.

n $3.2 million in facilities expenses, including replacing an elementary school roof, repaving the parking lots of two elementary schools, construction of an automotive services building at the high school and installing air conditioning in four elementary school cafeterias.

Additional increases come from rising insurance premiums, rising textbook prices and the initial payments on construction of a new elementary school in the Windy Gap area.

If state and federal contributions are factored in, the school’s budget totals $84.1 million, an increase of $12.7 million from last year.

County supervisors traditionally have been reluctant to raise tax rates more than a penny or two at a time. And, according to Franklin County Administrator Rick Huff, supervisors will likely have to raise the rate by 10 cents next year to cover the cost of several new projects not covered by the school board budget, including a regional jail and construction of a new landfill.

Johnson said has called for an audit of county schools each of the three years he’s been on the board.

“They’ve refused,” Johnson said. “Whether it’s popular or not, I am not for continuing funding additional moneys to the school until they audit what they do with what they have.”

Like Johnson, Union Hall Supervisor Charles Poindexter likewise said he was “in shock” upon reading about the school board’s request.

“This is an extraordinary request,” Poindexter said. “It will take a lot of meetings and close examinations of the details of that budget before the board moves forward.”

Meeting

7 p.m. tonight

Franklin County Workforce Development Center

The school board will present its budget to the board of supervisors.

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