The situation:
- The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors has voted to cut the School Board’s
- funding request by $49.8 Million.
- The adopted tax rate ($1.14) does not provide enough funds for LCPS to give even modest raises to its teachers, staff, custodians and other school employees.
- The supervisors did vote to give County employees a 3% raise.
- Three Supervisors (Buckley, McGimsey, Burk) have voted for a tax rate of $1.15, which will enable the schools to give a 3% step increase to all employees. It is a Penny for a Pay Raise.
- The final vote on the tax rate will be Tuesday morning, April 1st. Supervisors Buckley, McGimsey & Burk need your support to get the last Penny for a Pay Raise.
- Write to the Board of Supervisors and ask them to support a Penny for a Pay Raise: BOS@Loudoun.gov
- Join the rally at the County Government building in Leesburg on Monday March 31st at 5:30pm. Teachers, custodians, school staff of all kinds and the parents who support them must come and demand that the Board of Supervisors provide a Penny for a Pay Raise, ensuring that teachers and school employees will get a modest raise this year just like other County employees.
- Thank Supervisors Buckley, McGimsey & Burk for their support of the Penny for a Pay Raise.
- Let your child’s teachers know that you support the Penny for a Pay Raise.
- Pass this along to the people you know who want to support our teachers and school employees.
Sorry, I will be working againt this effort. Take the 3% - it is more than most people are receiving in private industry. Don't expect the citizens of Loudoun to be so gullible - a penny is not just a penny, it is an invitation for 10 more pennies next year. I will urge the BOS to hold the line and the county employees to hold their tongues, this is not YOUR money. I am tired of holding my nose, the school budget has gotten ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI have 2 kids in elementary school in Loudoun County and I am not alone in my opinion.
The point I'm trying to communicate is that they will NOT GET the 3% under the current budget.
ReplyDeleteI read it like it was 3% raise and and additional 3% step, a step is not always a raise is it? I know in other county budgets the county employees can be awarded a COLA across the board and a step if their job title is organized as such. Steps are sometimes not funded during budgetary crisis.
ReplyDeleteAre all Loudoun county employees receiving a COLA and you are asking for a step in addition?
You are right about how the Step and COLA work. The answer is that right now I'm fighting for the Step. Even with $1.15 there won't be COLA.
ReplyDeleteIf you view the stacked bar chart on the document I linked to in this post (or the Budget executive summary), you'll see that the bottom (largest) chuck of new money requested was for new enrollment (3,270 new students). The section above it is the Step. The one above that is the COLA.
You can see that even at $1.15, we're not even CLOSE to getting the COLA on top of the Step.
I don't think there should be a step raise. There has to be some incentive to be more cost effective. The step raise should be the bonus--the carrot-- that gets the schools system from the bottom up thinking about how to achieve a tax rate of $1.07 for taxpayer parity. That level of concern about the public purse was missing from this year's budget process compared with what happened in Fairfax.
ReplyDeleteNow that we know that the budget isn't going to be fully funded at the opening "High" budget, is the board ready to consider schedule changes and other reforms that would reduce the budget without as large an impact on class size or teacher raises? Last fall I came up with a long list of ways to put more children into fewer school buildings and to reduce the cost per child. Those ideas didn't get much traction at the initial budget stages because they didn't come from the staff. Maybe if raises were contingent on the staff seriously considering how to save money they might come up with their own (better) list and make it happen. If they do they deserve the cost savings passed on to them as bonuses.
Mr. Stevens, I believe there is some confusion about the budget process as a whole, and I can't think of a better place for it to be cleared up than here, within the screens of your blog.
ReplyDeleteSome of your entries can be misleading and misconstrued in leaving the impression that the School Board is wholly at the mercy of the Board of Supervisors in how funds approved are then allocated. It is my understanding that this is not the case - that the School Board, for the most part, once funds have been set aside, can then decide how those funds are disbursed across the school system.
Can you please provide more clarity into the process, either here within the comment section, or in a separate entry so that citizens, such as myself, not at all involved in the inner workings of county government can better understand?
I understood that there was a COLA in the budget right now. I will review, but I will agree that no step should be given. Tighten your belt like everyone else.
ReplyDeleteIs public Saftey getting a step? Do you see special "give a penny" demonstrations for the deputies? If public safety employees can take it, so can the school employees. I know the LCSD is partially subsidized by the state in funding, but the starting salary of a Deputy and teacher are basically the same, which is more expensive to replace after training?
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ReplyDeleteThis whole budget thing to the general public seems to be set up with smoke and mirrors so the public really sees it differently then what it is. It takes a financial wizard to understand anything. The more I hear on these blogs the more I get disgusted. I have to draw plans to complex buildings and structures that people that have a hard time understanding English have to build and my plans have to reflect that and still get the building built.
ReplyDeleteYet the school budget and the process that try to convince the BOS and public seems to be set up in way just trust what we say you don't need to fully understand the budget we will trick you oops I mean just trust us and fund it. All will be ok until next year ;-)
Just look at this "Penny for a Pay Raise" but it now is not all that simple when people who understand this show us, it is really smoke and mirrors again. Disgusting!!!!
This looks like a scare tactic to encourage others to carry out Hatrick's agenda. I think rather than make implied threats that no one will receive raises, I think the school board needs to look at creative ways to find the money for raises for the appropriate individuals for an avg of 3%. Start with salary cuts for Hatrick.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there has to be special programs like the Academy of Science that can be rolled back into regular high schools. How much does it cost to run this program any way? There seems to be no accountability for programs like this.
You all put in $500K in front door security buzzers that were really uncalled for and was knee jerk reaction by the school board to the VT incident. This is the waste that everyone is fed up with.
The security buzzers are indeed a waste of money, the one at our elementary school is not even utilized half the time. It was a knee-jerk and feel good expenditure, which constitutes a good portion of the budget. Necessary and reasonable should be the standard.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the 500K spent on the security systems could have paid for quite a few raises. School employees need to start looking at the costs of the implementation of some these scams and putting the blame of the budget squarely at the feet of Hatrick and the School Board, not the general public. I have no control over how my tax dollars are spent and my faith in those that do is gone.
I'm in opposition to the schools getting anything more that what they got in the last vote. Truth is, that was too much. In a time where lean funds have most families cutting back, the School Board shows us all that they are inept and unable to operate within a feasible budget, and even go so far as to be lousy shoppers.(think Whiteboards here)
ReplyDeleteIn early discussions, I had such great hopes for you, John. Upon further reflection, you were merely issuing early deflection.
I agree with the comments here and oppose any increase to the school budget until each portion can be justified. There seem to be no innovative ideas on reducing costs or increasing efficiencies within the system.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I found particularly offensive was Mr. Stevens getting his notice to rally for the "Penny for a Pay Raise" distributed through the PTA e-mail lists. Do you already consider the PTA to be a political organization, or are you just hoping to use it for your political purposes? If you want to destroy all the good the PTA does, just keep down the path of using it as a shill for your agenda. People will stop participating very quickly.
Our school district had a student to staff ratio of 8.24 in 1998; it’s now proposing a ratio of 6.59 students per staff. Why? And we have several hundred teachers in the school system that don’t teach a single class. If the 2009 budget simply supported a ratio of 7.40 students to staff (where we were in 2002), we would save $80 million. This one ratio corrects for student population growth, inflation, etc.
ReplyDeleteMore importantly, one of the wealthiest and highly educated counties in the nation has a bunch of cookie-cutter schools. Why? Where is the leadership?
And why aren’t we comparing ourselves to world standards instead of Virginia or U.S. standards? Our children are going to face a truly global economy. It’s why my wife and I are taking our four children to India for a year. Our U.S. schools (above 4th grade) pale in comparison to the rest of the world. It’s time we take our educational system beyond the 19th century model that created it. The models exist and in most cases are considerably less costly than what we’re doing right now.
BTW, did you see what the young school administrator is doing in NYC? He’s doubling teacher salaries and cutting out all the other stuff. I think its brilliant. This is the kind of bold approach we need to take to be competitive on a global scale. Happy to send you the article. Forget 3% raises. Let’s reduce our budget AND give our great teachers huge raises.
I could't agree more with a majority of the posts here, particularly using the PTA as a PAC. I am pretty close to telling our elementary to stick it, I get tired of the harrassing emails about the how we need to "stand up for our teachers" during budget decisions, as if we (the parents)are the NEA. Our elementary gets so much parental support through volunteers in the classroom at events, plus money for fundraisers. They are on the verge of going too far though, I hope Mr. Stevens realizes the problem he is creating.
ReplyDeleteThe NY story sound very interesting and I will do a search too read the specifics. The lack of ingenuity in this county is embarrassing.
I'd like to encourage parents and concerned citizens that are posting on this site to go to the "Penny" demonstration next Monday and let your voice be heard. Don't let the School Board and BOS get away with asking for a penny, even if it is one out of your pocket.