Published: March 30, 2008 09:17 pm      

School board: Raises require more funding

TAZEWELL, Va. — A proposed 5 percent pay increase for teachers in Tazewell County will require an increase in local funding, according to school officials.

The county school board is working against an April 1 deadline to get its 2008-2009 budget to the county Board of Supervisors. Board members were told Thursday that a proposed 5 percent plus step pay increase for teachers will require an increase of $680,000 in local revenue from the Board of Supervisors.

The supervisors meet Tuesday at 6 p.m., and the meeting is scheduled to include a presentation from the Tazewell Education Association on the 5 percent plus step increase request for teachers.

School Superintendent Dr. Brenda Lawson, who detailed the proposed 2008-2009 budget during Thursday’s school closure meeting for Pocahontas High School, said the budget also includes a provision for an adjustment to assistant principal pay scales, and an increase in travel reimbursements to match the county level.

“I think we found the school system wasn’t reimbursing at the same level as the local governing body,” school board president Mike Dennis said.

Lawson said the school system also has budgeted fuel at $4 per gallon as a result of rising gas prices.

The school system is projecting $3.9 million in state funding and a decrease of $435,000 in federal funding. The proposed budget also includes $2 million in bond revenue funds earmarked for the start of school renovations, and heating and air-conditioning upgrades to elementary school facilities across the county. The school system also is projecting savings of about $1.6 million from the closure of Pocahontas High School.

The school board was scheduled to meet again Saturday morning in order to finalize the budget before Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of the Supervisors. That prompted an objection from Northern District board member David Woodard, who said concerned citizens wouldn’t be able to attend an early morning meeting.

“I just object to having an early morning meeting when the vast majority of tax payers are sending their kids to school,” Woodard said. “That excludes the citizens of Tazewell County.”

Woodard said the school board shouldn’t have waited until five days before the deadline to finalize the school budget. That comment drew objections from board members Steve Davis and chairman Mike Dennis, who argued the school system didn’t learn its amount of state funding until just last Thursday.

“We had no idea what that (the state funding) would be,” Davis said.

– Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com