Projected budget has $480,000 shortfall

By: Erin McGrath | Nelson County Times
Published: February 24, 2010

The Nelson County Public School system could see less state money in the budget than expected for the 2010-11 school year.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, and finance committees for both the House of Delegates and the Senate in the Virginia General Assembly, all proposed budgets during the past few days, some with deeper cuts to education money than others.

As of Feb. 22, the proposed budget for Nelson County Public School’s 2010-11 school year included $23 million in spending, with only $22.1 million projected in funding, leaving a deficit of more than $880,000.

State money makes up more then $7.6 million of the projected revenue to be received in the 2010-11 school year, more than $800,000 less than in the 2009-10 school year.

With the cuts proposed by McDonnell, Nelson County Public Schools could lose $480,000 more in state funding, according to numbers released from the Virginia Education Association.

The school system could lose an additional $25,000 in state funding if a proposal by McDonnell to unfreeze the composite index funding forumula is approved.

The local composite index is a complex ability-to-pay formula that the state Department of Education uses to determine how much money to give to each of the state’s 134 school divisions.

It is unclear how much state funding would be cut from local school divisions in the budgets proposed by the House and the Senate in the Assembly. They are expected to approve budget drafts by the end of this week.

Nelson County Schools Superintendent Roger Collins said he and the school board are waiting for more information on state funding before making any budget decisions.

“The state budget news seems to change by the day,” Collins said. “We plan to analyze the information and present what we have learned to the school board and go from there.”

The Nelson County School Board and the Nelson County Board of Supervisors are scheduled to have a joint meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Nelson County courthouse in Lovingston to discuss the overall budget.