Rainy-day schools fund saved
as Lexington gets stimulus money
Lexington City Schools can leave their rainy-day savings untouched for the time being. With federal stimulus money for the schools now certain, the savings are no longer needed to fill holes in next year’s budget. But that won’t keep the school district from having to freeze teacher salaries next year.
On March 5, the Virginia Department of Education announced how much each school division will receive of the stimulus money designated to help make up for shortfalls caused by Gov. Tim Kaine’s school budget cuts. Of the $365 million statewide pot, Lexington’s share is about $265,000.
At its meeting March 23, the Lexington School Board approved an amendment to Lexington’s already approved budget for the coming year. The change involves using the stimulus money to replace money that otherwise would have come from the school district’s savings. Although the amendment will have an immediate impact, Superintendent Dan Lyons also sees long-term benefits.
“When the stimulus money runs out, we’ll still have our reserve funds to fall back on,” Lyons said.
School Board member Kirk Luder said the incoming stimulus money will buy the board more decision-making time if the recession continues. He said the extra money means it will be at least two years before the board will have to consider budget cuts big enough to cause staff reductions.
“The stimulus money coming in…was an unequivocal relief,” Luder said. “It gives us more time to plan for that contingency [staff reductions]. We would generally prefer to reduce staffing … as staff retire or otherwise leave employment on their own.”
Until the stimulus money was confirmed, the city schools were going to have to use about $100,000 of their reserve funds to help make up for the $350,000 in state budget cuts. Now, Lyons said, they can continue to save that money until it is needed again.
The total operating budget for the schools was originally projected at more than $6.5 million for the coming year, but the district made $250,000 in cuts after learning of the state budget reductions, leaving the $100,000 gap. Cuts were made in budgeted items including materials, supplies and field trips.
But while the stimulus money will help preserve the school district’s savings, it cannot fix every budget problem. According to the amended budget, teacher salaries also will be frozen for the coming year. And health insurance costs, a big unknown for much of the budget-making process, increased by more than 9 percent, raising yet again the amount of money the schools had to come up with. Despite these remaining issues, Lyons said the successes with the budget are still important.
“Everything goes up every year,” he said. “We’re very fortunate to have been able to do what we did with the budget for this year.”
Lyons said he hopes this is not the only stimulus money the city schools will see. Last month, the district applied for $10 million in stimulus money for the Lylburn Downing Middle School renovation project, which involves renovation of both the middle school and the community center. The project also includes a major addition to the school and creation of new parking and recreation areas. Lyons said he thinks Lexington schools have a good chance of receiving the money.
Originally, the school district estimated the cost of the renovations at about $7.5 million, but the lowest estimate – from Nielsen Builders in Harrisonburg – came in at $9.8 million. Lyons said the school board and the district have been looking during the past month for ways to reduce the total cost. A meeting with City Council is scheduled for Monday to announce the findings and the new anticipated cost.
Lyons said he has contacted all City Council members and area General Assembly delegates and asked Mayor Mimi Elrod to contact the governor. He thinks the Lexington city schools are among the few applicants that meet the criteria for receiving money, which include having a project that is ready to begin construction.
Lyons expects to learn during the first week of April whether Lexington received the money. The renovation will move ahead even without stimulus assistance, but Lyons said getting the money would make the project a lot less difficult.
“I’m still counting on help from the governor,” Lyons said. “That could solve all our problems.”
Produced by
Washington and Lee
journalism students.
Lead Supervisors:
Prof. Brian
Richardson
Prof. Indira Somani
Editing supervisor:
Prof. Lisa Tracy
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd