Prince William school board passes $1 billion budget

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va.—The Prince William County School Board passed its fiscal 2011 budget of $1.05 billion Wednesday night.

Based on the most current funding projections from the state and Prince William County, the school division could see only 200-plus layoffs—a far cry from the original 728 projected by Superintendent Steven L. Walts in his budget last month.

The school division originally faced a $79 million shortfall before additional monies from the state and county narrowed that gap to approximately $50 million. Part of that additional state funding came through the Virginia Retirement System, which in effect, lowered the cost of benefits for individual employees.

Included in the 2011 budget is $3 million for the specialty school buses, $3.6 million for economically disadvantaged programs for all grade levels and $2.3 million for kindergarten assistants.

Funding for the specialty school busing will restore limited service with up to 30 percent of the current stops being eliminated. Those bus stops with five or less students will be consolidated into stops with more students, said Walts.

The money used for kindergarten assistants will allow for a half a teacher assistant position for classes of 24 students. In the original budget, class sizes had to be larger than 24 in order to receive the services of a teacher assistant.

According to Walts, elementary school principals can use some of the $3.6 million for economically disadvantaged programs and put it towards fully staffing their kindergarten teacher assistant positions.

Some other notable restorations include approximately 56 office assistant positions at the elementary school level ($1.8 million), an additional one percent tax deferment annuity match by the division and $469,966 worth of funding for the retention of elementary school custodial staff.

Board member Betty Covington-Dumfries said Wednesday she hopes that through transfers and retirement no one will be laid off.

"There is nothing more devatasting than [people] losing their job when they have families to support and bills to pay," Covington said.

In his restoration of funds last week, Walts included $149,783 for an internal auditor position and $8,524 for the school board. The auditor position has been recommended for creation the last two years by an independent auditor.

Instead of following Walts’ recommendation, though, the school board made that a part-time position and will roll the rest of the budgeted money—including the school board funding—into the economically disadvantaged programs.