Just a few weeks after Governor Tim Kaine announced significant cuts to the budget for the next year, Albemarle County officials are bracing for a shortfall of $4.1 million to the current fiscal year, and county schools will have to absorb a $2.4 million cut. The county Board of Supervisors will meet Wednesday, September 10, to review and discuss staff’s recommendations to the 2009 budget.
Maury Brown, spokesperson for the county school system, says school officials are doing what they can to make cuts that would not directly affect the nearly 13,000 students. While schools are unaware of the exact amount of the cuts from the state, “there is the very real possibility that we will actually have less money this year than last,” says Brown. This is due, in part, to falling real estate assessments and lower than expected sales taxes.
 Bruce Benson, county schools assistant superintendent for student learning, says that individual schools will have some discretion about where the cuts will be made. |
Repairs, staff overtime and funds for travel, among other things, can be affected, depending on the school.
“We give them the number of how much they need to hold back, and they have some discretion as to where that number comes from,” says Bruce Benson, Albemarle County Schools assistant superintendent for student learning.
Brown says the county has already put limitations on some expenditure, but she expects more to come. Such limitations include increasing replacement cycles for classroom computers from three to four years. “They are older machines and if you couple that with the lack of funds for repairs,” says Brown, “it starts to spiral on itself.”
In next week’s meeting, the Board will try to assess the shortfall and offer some solutions as to how it will disburse the funds raised from the extra penny of the property tax the supervisors agreed to put in a proverbial “lock box” to be used only if revenues weren’t as expected. Brown says school officials are not aware of the status of that $1.4 million.
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