The York County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 Thursday to pass a $130.1 million budget for 2014 and to raise the real estate tax rate 1 cent to 75.15 cents per $100 of assessed value.
The proposal to raise the tax rate by 1 cent was made Tuesday by Supervisor Thomas Shepperd. Before Tuesday’s proposal, the conversation at work sessions throughout the month of April centered on the 2.3-cent tax rate increase proposed by County Administrator James McReynolds on March 19. The vote to lower the rate increase means the school division will receive $57.8 million from the county, an increase of $1.17 million from last year’s budget — the increase falls short of the $2.9 million requested by the school division.
Since the supervisors spent nearly all of the budget process following McReynolds proposal discussing the 2.3-cent increase — which would have allocated $2.3 million to schools — the School Board must now figure out how to cut almost $1.2 million from their budget.
School Board Chair Barbara Haywood sent a letter to community members Wednesday afternoon that said even if the school board elected to reduce expenditures related to the Virginia Retirement System and adjusted employee health insurance programs or premiums, they would be forced to make “other significant reductions.” She said those cuts could include additional cuts of classroom teachers and para-educators — the school board was already cutting 14 positions if it received the $2.3 million, which would have brought the total to 124 positions cut in recent years.
Throughout the budget work sessions, McReynolds has said the county has trimmed its belt as much as it can, and that any further cutting would result in a loss of services. A county spokesperson said Wednesday that the county has eliminated 25 jobs since 2009. The county has also quit paying for recycling with taxpayer funds, instead charging fees to citizens.
Thursday’s vote punctuates a budget process that began in December with a preliminary budget outlook. From the time that McReynolds proposed his budget on March 19 until Shepperd’s 1-cent suggestion Tuesday, the supervisors hadn’t changed anything from McReynolds’ proposed budget.
The School Board will hold a work session Monday where they will begin to figure out how to deal with the last-minute change to the allocation they were expecting to receive.
After Thursday’s meeting, Haywood speculated that a 2 percent raise for teachers — which would be the first in four years — is still on the table, though that is unclear following the adoption of the new tax rate. The approved budget does includes a 2 percent raise for county employees.
“It’s back to the drawing board,” Haywood said of the change.
Haywood said the one-cent proposal came suddenly, which provided no chance to interact with the supervisors about the change. Thursday’s Board of Supervisors meeting did not include any comments from the public. A public hearing was held last week, where seven of the nine speakers addressed the tax rate — all of them said the tax rate should not climb.
Supervisors Sheila Noll and Donald Wiggins said they would have voted for the 2.3 cent increase. Supervisor George Hrichak said he opposed any tax rate increase, but that he would vote for the 1 cent increase in “the spirit of compromise.”
Supervisor Walt Zaremba said county citizens should have been more involved in the budget process.
“One of my disappointments was the dearth of participation of citizens until the last few days,” Zaremba said. He said more dialogue with the school board is a necessity when it comes time to formulate the next budget. “We’re not going to find too many people who are happy with what we’ve done,” he said.
Shepperd echoed Zaremba in the desire to have more citizens active in the budget process. He also said citizens should try to provide input before the last minute and that he received a number of e-mails following his 1-cent proposal on Tuesday.
“We’re not going to cut services,” Shepperd said. “We’re not going to cut our contribution to schools. Every year we provide more and more. We’re still continuing to provide money to schools, and it’s something to be proud of.”
But those increased contributions are smaller than the amount of money the school division has lost in state contributions, said Superintendent Eric Williams.
“The challenge is that though the supervisors have increased appropriations to schools in recent years, we’ve lost millions more than that in state aid,” he said. “The question is do we want excellent schools?”
A presentation from Williams at the Feb. 15 joint work session between the supervisors and the school board showed that money from the state has declined from slightly over $66 million in 2009 to almost $56.2 million in 2013. That presentation did not include a further loss of funding the school division is facing from sequestration. Williams said that loss will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Chuck Cooper, president of the York County Council of PTAs, circulated an e-mail Wednesday asking presidents of school PTAs to forward Haywood’s letter to their memberships and to encourage their memberships to contact Williams, the School Board and the Board of Supervisors to ask them to delay the vote until another public hearing can be had and to continue support for strong schools and competitive teacher salaries and benefits.
The public hearing last week included a presentation of the 2.3-cent proposed increase, though it did not mention the 1-cent increase that was passed Thursday.
A number of teachers turned out to Thursday’s meeting, joining members of the school board and Williams.
“It’s an issue of transparency,” said Sam Eure, a York High School AP Human Geography and Government teacher. “If you’re going to do something, plan it. We’re getting people ready for tests that are the key to the way the county looks. You’re going to put us in a quandary right now?”
Eure said AP and Standards of Learning tests are quickly approaching, which have the teachers focused on that instead of the budget process.
Teena McClaire, an art teacher at Grafton Bethel Elementary School, said the last-minute change in conversation about the direction of the budget fails to consider the effect a change would have on the classroom. She said an increase in living expenses and frozen wages have had a direct effect on the school division.
“I know people who have moved into other school districts because of the freeze,” McClaire said.
They both said class sizes are increasing, and that has a tangible effect on student performance.
“They say York County is the place to go [for schools],” said Mary Flaherty-Nobile, a teacher at Grafton High School. “I don’t know how you can maintain that quality if you don’t fund the schools. Our tax rates are lower than surrounding school systems, yet we have this reputation and we’ve been able to maintain it. It’s not going to be able to hold up.”
