With a bruising 2009 budget season barely behind them, school officials around the Washington region are spending their summers bracing for 2010 numbers that could put even more jobs on the line and more students at risk of larger classes and fewer special programs.
“The revenue projections are bleak,” said Kristen Michael, budget director for Fairfax County, where in fiscal 2009 the maximum class size will be bumped up and teachers will earn a meager 2 percent cost of living increase. In Fairfax, as in its Maryland twin, Montgomery County, local revenue supplies about three-quarters of the entire budget, making the school system especially responsive to the crumbling housing market.
Michael’s counterpart in Montgomery expressed the same dire prognosis, explaining many of the 2009 cost savings the school board eked out to buffer an about $40 million shortfall between its request and the County Council’s allotment won’t be available next year — items such as delayed deposits to a retirement trust fund and decreased administrative costs for benefits.
“If growth is down, revenue is lower and if inflation is up, costs are higher,” said budget director Marshall Spatz. “That sets the stage.”
Spatz laid out a litany of concerns from a decline in state and federal funds to soaring health care costs to the need for about 45 replacement school buses to suck up $4-plus gallons of gasoline.
“People don’t always understand how the economy affects the school district,” Spatz said. “But the things affecting regular people are the same things thatare affecting us.” The thought was echoed by officials in D.C. and Prince William County.
How the projected shortfalls will affect the school programs will begin to be determined in coming months as supervisors from special education to food services begin to filter through essential needs in time for superintendents to make budget recommendations beginning at the end of the calendar year.
Until then, school boards and superintendents will begin a political dance to convince local governments of the need for full funding.
“The strategy is to secure as much money as possible,” said Montgomery board member Sharon Cox. “We are a very successful public education business, but unlike a regular business, that doesn’t result in any money for us. We have to beg.”
