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By PAMELA GOULD
Freshman and middle school sports in Spotsylvania County have been rescued from the fiscal 2011 chopping block but whether staff will be furloughed is yet to be determined.
Yesterday during a budget work session, School Board members learned that the school division would save $603,453 in salaries for each day the entire staff was furloughed and schools were closed.
Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Edlow Barker recommended that if unpaid leave days are implemented that they take place the last week of school.
The board held its second all-day session on the budget yesterday. Another is scheduled for Thursday. The board is scheduled to adopt its fiscal 2011 budget on Feb. 15. The board is currently working to craft a budget $14.7 million less than this year.
The board expressed support for implementing a pay-for-play program in the middle schools to cover the cost of their sports program. The required payment would probably exceed $100 per athlete per sport to cover the expense of the program, which school officials say is $194,078 for a year. The fee also would need to be enough to cover an estimated 30 percent of students who are economically disadvantaged and would not be expected to pay the fee.
Since the board has been discussing the possibility of pay-for-play, the plan has always been to allow youths who qualify for free- or reduced-price meals to receive scholarships to enable them to participate.
Freshman sports would also be saved as a pay-to-play program. In addition, high schools will start charging a fee to all athletes to cover the cost of transportation. The amount of the fees has not been determined.
Earlier this week, board member Ray Lora expressed his disdain for the proposal to cut middle school sports. At a town hall meeting at Courtland Elementary Wednesday, he called the proposal "a Trojan horse" meant to distract from other issues in Superintendent Jerry Hill's budget proposal.
Lora and board member Amanda Blalock have said repeatedly that they would not support eliminating middle school sports.
Yesterday, the board also expressed its opposition to the school division's policy of treating contract addenda to salaries differently from stipends. Hill's proposal calls for trimming stipends by 10 percent for all staff except first-year teachers and department chairs. Stipends, which include coaches pay, were also cut in creating the current budget.
Car allowances and supplemental pay for serving as a high school department chair are classified as addenda.
Neither in developing this year's budget nor next year's has Hill proposed cutting any addenda. Yesterday, Board chairman Gil Seaux stressed that addenda are figured into Virginia retirement pay and that cutting them would have a long-term impact.
"We create an inequity," Lora said. "I would argue stipends are just as important as addendums. We should not cut one without the other. Some people, quite frankly, are not earning the addendums."
Board member Donald Holmes agreed: "It's inherently wrong to reduce someone's stipend and hold someone's addendums sacrosanct."
"I don't care what you call it," he said. "It's above and beyond their [base] pay."
The School Board also received a full breakdown of the 108 positions based at the central office. Some speakers at Monday's public hearing called for staff cuts to begin at the top of the pay scale and at central office.
Hill opened yesterday's meeting by summarizing the division's past nine years and noting the progress made resulted from "leadership, vision and planning."
"When things get tough, I understand I'm going to be a target but we can't get caught up in all of this furor and forget it's everybody who got us where we are today," he said.
He added that the reductions he's proposing are painful but unavoidable and that he is doing his part.
"This is all about picking bad choices out of a pool of bad choices," he told the board.
Hill's budget calls for 131 positions to be cut, most of which are in instruction.
The board agreed to $8.2 million in cuts yesterday.
No decisions were made on any positions that would see a pay cut. However, the board did agree to eliminate 13 elementary-teacher positions, the elementary Spanish program and its 17 teachers, and 30 secondary teach- ers.
Pamela Gould: 540/735-1972
Email: pgould@freelancestar.com
Here are pay cuts in Superintendent Jerry Hill's fiscal 2011 budget proposal.
--Three furlough days for superintendent, assistant superintendents, directors and principals; three-day reduction in annual leave for superintendent: $75,173.
--Reduce all teacher stipends by 10 percent except for beginning teachers and high school department chairs: $112,063.
--Reduce 4 Career and Technical Center educator contracts to 10.5 months: $9,921.
--Reduce 4 Governor's School contracts to 10.5 months: $8,151.
--Reduce 3 Assistant Principal contracts to 11 months (These will be people not currently in these positions): $24,218.
--Reduce 1 Instructional Coordinator contract to 11 months: $6,274.
TOTAL SAVINGS: $235,800
The Brock Road Elementary PTO is holding a town hall meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the school, 10207 Brock Road. School Board members Ray Lora and Amanda Blalock are expected, as well as T.C. Waddy of the Board of County Supervisors.
The Spotsylvania County School Board holds an all-day work session on the budget Thursday, starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Administrative Services Building, 8020 River Stone Drive, Massaponax.
