I totally agree with what you said. I told my husband the fears they were instilling in the teachers of possibly losing their jobs and I thought was ridiculous especially since there was home assessment increases of about 20% and thats why they wanted to lower property taxes by what a couple of cents?! AND trust me there is ALOT of FAT to trim from downtown. How about all these guest speakers they hire to come from California to inspire new teachers? These speakers cost THOUSANDS of dollars. Why not trim there?

The rest of us start with how much we have, and budget from there. To “budget” as they do now is irresponsible use of our money, in my opinion. Not everything can be solved with more and more money.

I believe that the data support the statement that enrollment has been flat – system-wide – but that enrollment is shifting within the County.

I have already read Brian’s website, and some of the county budget. I had not found the exact site you mention above so I will look at that in more detail – thanks. Brian’s website is at least part of why I believe we should continue support for the school budget in full.

Don’t worry – I supported Brian in his first election and think it is one of the best decisions I have been able to make in a long time. I will continue to support him in the future.

Dee

Thank you for your comments. All I will add for now is this:

The Albemarle County Budget and Brian Wheeler’s Budget category on his blog.

BTW, Brian is running for re-election; more politicians should practice the transparency that Brian demonstrates.

I just wanted to ask a couple of questions about your comments above. First, where did you get the data on the increase in the budget versus the increase in the students? While I trust you overall – this just simply does not seem possible to me as every school I am familiar with in the county is near or above capacity and, from what I have been told, almost every one has trailers in some form or another. This may indicate that we have hit a point where we need a great deal more investment even just to take care of what students we have already and a lack of funding in the past rather than over funding now. I was interested in seeing these numbers for myself because the school my kids were at three years ago (Cale) has increased in the over 100 student range, while Crozet seems to have done the same.

Second, while I am not as informed as I would like to be on the details of the budget, I would not be surprised if the very administrative personnel you don’t want are required by the “No Child Left Behind” legislation. In particular, one of the big requirements for NCLB is testing – grading and analysis of the results of all of these tests, as well as review of the procedures, production of the tests and oversight are at least part of what all those downtown folks are doing. While accountability is good, it can be taken to the extreme and cost more than the actual program itself. I know that it takes at least 8 weeks of a staff person at Crozet to administer the tests there. That does not count all of the other staff that helps in one way or another by proctoring exams etc. It would be really nice if there was a way to see the expense of the federal and state programs in the budget.

Finally, in terms of administrators and counting “downtown” people, I wonder how they count assistant principals. My perception is that the assistant principal at Crozet solves many problems for individual teachers enabling them to do a better job teaching. I wonder if all the principals and assistant principals are considered administration.

I hope to find out more answers about the details myself, but in the end I am for the school budget and not having across the board tax cuts as I don’t see it helping people who need it most.This kind of tax cut (or lack of increase) benefits most those who need it the least. I want the local government to provide more services and infrastructure. I don’t want my kids going to overcrowded schools, trying to walk and ride bikes on busy streets with no sidewalks, and I want programs for public transportation and affordable housing. I am for programs to remedy the tax situation for those on fixed incomes and for those that have owned their property for years (or have family property). But keeping the budget the same for the county when it is growing so fast, and faces increases in providing teachers and staff health care, cost of living increases, energy costs, etc. is no more responsible than ignoring the needs of those on a fixed income.

I believe in keeping our elected officials accountable, but there is also at least one I trust – Brian Wheeler. I think this discussion is good and it has made me find out more about the school budget and how my money is being spent. However, my response after becoming more informed is that I do not want the tax rate reduced (or lets me really clear) – go ahead and increase my taxes to keep the school programs functioning and begin to build more savings in for infrastructure improvements and programs to eliminate taxes for those with fixed incomes.

And, yes, thank you for your comments and all of your work in the community. I think that together we can keep these folks accountable without going over board. Maybe one of the good things that could come out of this is some way to see the budgets and what exactly is being funded – because I whole-heartedly agree that is hard data to find.

Sincerely,

Dee A. B. Weikle