BOS Comments from Feb 2nd

There were 7 GEPA Speakers at the Feb 2nd Board of Supervisors Meeting. The text of their speeches is posted below. I have removed personal addresses from the speeches.

JOHN WRIGHT:

My name is John D. Wright. I live at {redacted - KGM}.

Mr. Chairman, Board Members, and Mrs. Dickson, I stand before you this evening an exasperated parent. On November 24 of this past year, I received a phone call from a desperate parent of a classmate in my oldest daughter’s class, informing me that at that evening’s School Board meeting the Superintendent was going to propose devastating cuts to core programs of the school system. She requested that I round up as many other parents as possible to attend that meeting in order to have a voice in this process.

At that meeting, a School Board member shocked parents by flatly admitting that cuts were being proposed to core programs in order to, and I quote, “sick the parents on the Board of Supervisors”, while the Superintendent nodded her approval of the statement. It seemed the familiar back and forth between the School Board and the Board of Supervisors was once again going to play out. The School Board and the Superintendent again intended to make parents the pawns in a high stakes game of chess between these two boards.

Parents are all too familiar with tightening budgets, and making sacrifices in order to meet the essential needs of their children. It didn’t take long to connect the dots that plummeting home values, rising costs and a school population that is growing at 2.5% per year were on a collision course that would no doubt mean dire times for the county and its school system. The County Administrator requested, and rightfully so, a cut of $2.9 million dollars from the previous year’s budget.

This began one of the most frustrating budget processes in the history of Goochland Schools. I say frustrating, not because of the amount of money being cut from the budget, but rather because of the insincere and at times vindictive approach to the process by the School’s Superintendent. Questions went unanswered or skirted by distractive statements that were off subject. Documents such as Board minutes and the budget itself were not made available to the public for weeks, if at all. Offers of help and suggestions from parents were ignored.

On December 15th, the Superintendent tried to sooth parents by announcing a proposed budget consisting of only $700,000 in cuts. She tried to placate the frustrated parents by saying that her proposed budget no longer was going to cut core programs, was no longer going to remove valuable classroom resources, was no longer going to threaten the quality of education being provided by this fine school system. Once again, parents sat shocked at the statements being made. In the final public comment period, a parent questioned the wisdom of going to the Board of Supervisors with a budget so far out of line with the County Administrator’s mandate.

Not surprisingly, at the December 22nd meeting, the Superintendent announced that she planned to propose $1.5 million dollars in cuts, including all the items she assured parents would not be in danger the previous week.
During this time, numerous requests for information went unfulfilled, ultimately forcing parents to request information from the DOE. DOE officials could not believe that the information wasn’t made available locally.

Also during this time, parents felt they had no choice but to attempt to make themselves heard as a group, forming the Goochland Education Parent Association (GEPA). In a week’s time that group grew to over 100 members. Over time that number has multiplied.

The proposed budget was not made available to the public until after several more meetings on January 12th, the final scheduled meeting before the School Board was to vote whether or not to accept the Superintendent’s proposal. GEPA and other parents demanded time to review the proposed budget, and successfully requested another meeting to address their concerns.

As a group, GEPA used the combined talents of it’s members to research, collaborate and propose a Budget Counterproposal that comprised of cuts in the waste in the system, while preserving the frontline Teachers, Textbooks and Programs targeted by the Superintendent’s proposal. This budget counterproposal was thoughtfully assembled, and cuts were not proposed that could not be substantiated by hard facts obtained from the DOE, information previously made public through the local media, and the small amount of information provided by the school administration themselves.

GEPA members, and parents at large, scheduled meetings with their School Board representatives to explain their positions and seek answers. We even invited two School Board members to a GEPA meeting. In this meeting, the school board member who did attend asked why we hadn’t contacted him sooner. When it was pointed out that dozens of emails had been sent to him on a wide variety of budget matters, he admitted that, and I quote, “Oh, I don’t really check that email account”. When asked if he had considered GEPA’s counterproposal, he stated that he did, but when discussing specifics it became apparent that he had not. When asked specific questions about the Superintendent’s proposal, it was apparent that he hadn’t fully read that either.

Ultimately, the parent’s efforts were not seriously considered. The Board saw fit to rubber stamp the Superintendent’s proposal, and then had the gall to request that parents go to the board and ask for a tax rate increase to help fund their flawed version. In the process, they placed blame on the County Administrator and the Board of Supervisors for forcing them to make the decisions they set forth.

I stand before you today to say that I do NOT request that you raise my taxes, or those of other citizens struggling to make ends meet in these difficult times. I stand before you today to say that the School Superintendent has committed a breach of confidence with the public she serves, casting suspicion in the public eye of each action taken on her behalf. I stand before you today to ask that you reject the Superintendent’s Budget Proposal, approved by the School Board, and make changes to it that produce a more sustainable school system. I stand before you today to ask that you pay attention to the wishes of your constituents, even if the School System chooses not to do so. Thank you.


JOHN HERRMAN

John presented a portion of his powerpoint presentation. The full presentation is here --> http://www.goochlandparents.com/files/GoochlandCounty_Maintenance_and_Transport.pdf


ADEEB HAMZEY

Chairman Quarles
County Administrator – Ms Dickson
The honorable members of the Board of Supervisors
Members of the audience
Good evening
My name is Adeeb Hamzey, and I live at {redacted – KGM}
What I am sharing with you tonight reflects my personal point of view, as well as that of the newly formed and growing Goochland Education Parents Association (GEPA), with respect to the County school budget.
I would urge you to reject the School Budget as presented to you by Superintendent Dr. Linda Underwood based on the following, among other issues either covered or will be covered by other speakers tonight.
Having said that please let me assure you that we, the citizens of Goochland County, fully understand and appreciate the need for tightening of belts, including those of County administration and public schools. We are living through very trying times indeed, and we need to make smart and far reaching decisions that address the short term economic constraints yet meet the needs of future generations. Unfortunately, the school budget, as approved by the School Board, is unacceptable.
It lacks vision and is short on a comprehensive thought process. Cutting instructional programs that took years to build, bringing down standards of educational quality, and eliminating teachers needed in the classrooms, while justifying expensive and nonproductive administrative positions, is misguided and lacks leadership.


BUDGET PROCESS
Several meetings citizens have had with Dr. Underwood and members of the School Board point to the awkwardness of the budget process as practiced by those involved in this ritual. They quickly assert that they have to wait for the Board of Supervisors to initiate the budget cycle, and that didn’t come until September 2009. Decisions were made in haste, and conclusions were quick in favor of suggestions to raise taxes. Show me good stewardship in handling expenses, and I will understand the need for more taxes. Raising taxes is a LAST resort not a convenient step.
I work in the private sector and have been involved with preparing budgets. My experience has been that budget preparation takes seven to eight months, during which time cost centers provide their individual budget segments. Controlling entities meet regularly to assess YTD and budget variance that allows timely adjustments. This metric is not unique to the private sector. It is obvious there is a lack of communication between the School Board and County Administration on many issues including the budget. Communication is non-existent between School Board and the superintendent on one hand and the parents on the other hand. It is our right and responsibility to contribute positively to our representative government, since we live in a democracy unlike others. However, the voiced concerns of our citizens seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
This practice is antiquated and needs to be replaced with one that fosters better communication, transparency, and builds trust with the citizens.


WASTE
This School Budget encourages waste on two fronts: material and intellectual.
I see material waste in allocating costs to school administration, maintenance, and transportation; waste that is addressed by Mr. John Herrmann and others; waste in procuring cafeteria food and other supply items; waste in electrical consumption, such as lights left burning all night on various occasions in football and baseball fields, and the like. A good example, on the notion that electric rates were going up by 18% by VEPGA, a budget increase in excess of $33,600 was placed in the Building Services Section 64300 – 090. Where are the actual numbers? What austerity and conservation measures have been enacted by the school administration, through the school system buildings, around the year to lower electrical consumption? Not only turning lights off, removing some light bulbs from electric fixtures, and adjusting thermostats save energy. These measures teach the youth the value of meaningful conservation. Let them feel it and live through it to appreciate it. AND save money along the way. I love my post office, but why do we need $15,000 in postal services? Some figures are carried over from last year. Actual numbers, if tracked, should show whether they need to be adjusted up or down. Contracts such as the $135,000 for repair and maintenance need to be renegotiated, and the $80,000 budget item for repair and maintenance supplies needs to be tracked more closely. Food supplies need to be controlled better. The approximately $5,600 daily revenues will increase if better cost controls are in place. I witnessed many students throwing most of their meals in the waste basket. These are just examples of the waste that needs to be addressed before a decision is made to lay off a teacher or a program is cut.
The intellectual waste is even more dangerous, as it affects the status and preparedness of future leaders. The mind is a terrible thing to waste. When a curriculum is diluted to the point where it provides no challenge to capable students, it stymies their potential and stifles their ability to function at their best. All the young talent in the gifted center, for example, is going to be less served going forward due to the deliberate phasing out of the gifted center and the dilution of the curriculum in the middle and high school. All the research in this area points to this fact. This is detrimental to the future of our kids, to our property value, and counterproductive in terms of making Goochland County the desired place to raise a family.


INEFFICIENCY
Inefficiency lies in not challenging the way we do business. I see duplication of services and nonproductive practices that require further scrutiny in the school budget. In the Technology Division-wide Instructional Support, Code 68,200-90, I question the value of the $500,000 for leases and rentals. Inefficiencies also exist in other areas of Goochland schools operation such as maintenance, transportation, and school administration.
IN CLOSING,
What we need is transparency, a financially savvy superintendent, and a capable school board to challenge budget assumptions and expenditures, which result is a more streamlined budget worthy of defending by the citizens of Goochland County. It may be the School Budget, but it is the taxpayers’ hard earned money.
We definitely do not need rubber stamping decisions with total disregard to public input. Thank you for your time.
Adeeb Hamzey



KRISTIN MCNARON

Gentlemen of the Board, Ms. Dickson, thank you for letting us speak tonight. My name is Kristin McNaron, and I live at {redacted – KGM}. I speak to you today as the secretary of the Goochland Education Parents Association.

In my professional career and life, I have tried to live by the adage . . . don’t offer criticism where you can’t also offer ideas for an alternative solution. Members of the GEPA have spent hundreds of hours studying the proposed 2010-2011 school budget, and we found that there are many opportunities for a more efficient budget that is more in line with community priorities. We offer these ideas in the form of a proposed alternative budget. We offered this alternative budget for the School Board to review, comment, or question . . . as we offer it to you tonight. We will provide you copies tonight, and you may also find the proposal at www.goochlandparents.com.

The GEPA budget alternative is based on the School Board’s proposed budget. While we challenge the miscategorization of clearly administrative positions within the instructional category in the SB budget, we have maintained this categorization for comparative purposes and noted the concerns in our included narrative.

The GEPA budget supports 6 key priorities:

1. Preserve classroom teaching positions.
2. Preserve the current pupil/teacher ratio.
3. Preserve a balanced, full service curriculum of programs and services to fulfill the needs of every child in the GCPS system.
4. Reduce administrative costs and other non-teaching overheads.
5. Operate the GCPS system in the best interests of ALL the children ALL the time.
6. Maintain Goochland property values.


To compare and contrast the SB budget versus GEPA’s proposed alternative:

Within the instructional category, our alternative cuts only $131k LESS than the SB version, but we make the cuts in administrative positions rather than in teachers, programs, or textbooks.

Within the administrative category, our alternative cuts $61K MORE than the SB budget by combination of duties of multiple positions.

Within the transportation category, our alternative suggests $220K in cuts through efficiencies not yet explored by the School Board, whereas the SB version increases the transportation budget YOY.

Within the maintenance category, our alternative cuts $54k through efficiencies and green programs, whereas the SB budgets asks us to again increase this category YOY.

And within the technology category, our alternative cuts $95k by combination of multiple positions, whereas again, the SB budget would have us increase this budget YOY.

The budget to be proposed to you tonight by the Superintendent on behalf of the School Board is NOT in line with community priorities, and we cannot support it. The community has voiced again and again that we CAN be part of the solution, and we have thoughtful alternative ideas that are falling on deaf ears. We ask that you listen.

JO D HOSKEN

Good evening my name is Jo D. Hosken of {redacted - KGM}. What I would like to address is the ratios in the classrooms. Dr Underwood’s proposal states that we will increase the classroom sizes by eliminating teaching positions. She defends this by comparing us to neighboring counties like Henrico and Chesterfield. I think that we are all aware that this is comparing apples to motorcars. Our county revenue barely exceeds their schools’ budget cuts. The amount of resources in each of these school systems is not comparable to ours.

Dr Underwood points out in her blog that this change will instill a minor change bringing us to 18.88 students in the elementary grades and 17.2 in middle and 19.78 in high school. Perhaps the administration failed to look at classroom roosters or include in these ratios special needs children who require 3 to 1 ratios. My son who is a kindergartener at Randolph currently has 19 other classmates. In fact the ratio within Randolph is currently 18.47 to 1. We at Randolph are blessed with full time volunteers who assist in the classrooms but compared to Short Pump Elementary which houses 23 kindergarteners to one teacher and one full time aide, apples to motorcars, we actually have higher ratios.

With a 2.5 % growth in enrollment occurring in Goochland county schools annually over the last three years our teacher to student ratios are increasing and will continue to increase without any teacher cuts. To propose an additional increase while eliminating math and literacy specialists designed to help children who struggle already in the classrooms is absurd. This has time and time again been shown to decrease performance.

In the Center based program the current budget proposes combining two grades in one classroom with one teacher and assistance from another teacher for certain subject matters. This will put 26 children in one room with one teacher. That puts us at state capacity for our most accelerated students.

I fear that our administration forgot somewhere during this process that these are not numbers but little bodies. There is no such thing as a .4 of a child or a teacher. These children will be sitting in larger classrooms and not have resources for extra help in either direction and they will suffer. Who will help them if they struggle with this week’s lesson or prepare them for next week’s assignment? These are children not computers they require teaching not downloads. We will have to rely heavily on volunteers who have come into the schools out of the goodness of their hearts and in return what we will be giving them is added burden and decreased property values from suffering schools?

KENDALL HOFFLER

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Kendall Hoffler. I have two children at Randolph Elementary, and two younger children who will be there in a few years. My husband and I are both born and raised in the Short Pump area and moved to Goochland six years ago to raise our children here, in a place were they could feel safe playing outside, get a quality education, and easily get to know and become a part of their community.

It is as a member of this community, as well as a parent, that I present the following petition to the Board of Supervisors. This petition was created last week, after the School Board voted unanimously to accept Dr. Underwood’s proposed budget for the 2010-2011 school year. In five days, and during a snow storm no less, more than 400 names have been collected. These are not just members of GEPA, or parents like me, but rather our fellow citizens, some with no children in our school system, that are simply concerned about the impact of this budget on the future of our schools and on our property values.

I can easily speak to this as a parent, who does not want to see any funds cut from the school budget. I’d like to see it fully-funded, so that no cuts need to be considered, but I know that is not realistic in these economic times. It becomes more difficult to speak to this as a homeowner. I have seen my property value drop by more than $60,000 this year alone, and it has been stated previously that one of the greatest factors in the valuation of a home or land is the locality’s educational system. What are the implications to all of our property values if we allow our schools to take a step backwards, which is what the proposed budget does?

I cannot in good conscience support the current proposed school budget, which eliminates teaching positions, vital programs, and important educational tools. I do not think it reflects the priorities that have been stated throughout the budget process, and I do not think the superintendent and the school board have listened to the community. I submit this petition, and the number of signatures gained in such a short time, as proof of that.

Again, over 400 Goochland residents have signed the petition, which reads:

We recognize that Goochland County is facing significant revenue reductions for the 2011 fiscal year, and we appreciate the budget constraints this places on both the County and the School Board.

However, we cannot support the proposed School Board budget, which cuts to the core of our school system. The proposed School Board budget does not accurately reflect the publicly-expressed budget priorities of the parents and residents of Goochland County, which are:

1. TEACHERS: Preserve classroom teaching positions and current pupil/teacher ratios.

2. PROGRAMS: Preserve a broad range of programs and services in our schools, to meet the diverse educational needs of EVERY child.

3. TOOLS: Preserve the key tools needed to support education, including textbooks, art supplies, musical instruments, educational software and other teaching materials.

We do not accept the reduction of any teachers, programs or educational tools. This petition asks the Goochland County Board of Supervisors to protect our teachers, programs and the educational tools available that enable each and every child to reach their full potential.

Thank you for your time.


JANE CHRISTIE

Mr. Chairman, gentlemen of the Board, Ms Dickson, thank you for letting us speak tonight. My name is Jane Christie, I have lived at {redacted - KGM} for about 19 years and have 3 children in GCPS. Tonight, as a parent, a taxpayer and the Vice Chair of the Goochland Education Parents Association, I would like to say that while we sincerely appreciate the difficulties caused by the current economic situation, we cannot accept, and ask you to reject, the proposed School Board budget, which we believe cuts costs in all the wrong areas.

We question why the Superintendent is willing to accept health insurance premium increases totaling almost 50% in two years and the proposal to increase the school budget by $276,000 next year to fund increased health insurance premiums. And why, when it has been shown that Goochland is already among the least efficient counties in the state for Transportation and Maintenance costs, does the Superintendent still recommend increasing the budgets in both of these areas. Contrary to the express wishes of parents and citizens, voiced at numerous public hearings, the Superintendent proposes no cuts in high-level administrative positions, which is difficult to comprehend when we have, for example, a Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent and 5 Director-level positions of Education, Technology and Athletics, earning over $1 million in salaries and benefits between the 7 of them!

How can the Superintendent possibly justify these excesses, whilst eliminating 10 frontline teaching positions, cutting the school supplies budget in half, eliminating educational programs, (including the acclaimed Goochland County Center for the Gifted, and Tender Tots), cutting $120,000 from the textbook budget and completely eliminating the budgets for musical instruments and art supplies next year? To consistently target for cuts the very areas on which most advanced education scholarships are based, - the arts, athletics and gifted ability – seems incredibly short-sighted and damaging, not only to the students and the schools, but to our property values in the County. How can we realistically maintain quality in our schools, with these proposed cuts in teachers, educational programs and materials, when faced with a growing school population?

We also request that you please, do NOT accept the School Board request for a single, lump sum payment of funds, and instead, continue allocating funds to the School Board according to the expenditure categories prescribed by Section 22.1-115 of the Code of Virginia. There are already concerns about the allocation of funds within these legal budget categories. For example, the Superintendent currently classifies the positions of Assistant Superintendent, Human Resource Specialist and Psychologist as Instruction expenses, when the VDOE clearly specifies that these should be reported under the Administration budget category. This might perhaps explain why our Administration budget is one of the lowest in the State, and our Instruction budget is apparently too small for us to afford our teachers! To allocate funds as a single lump sum would conveniently avoid this issue of accountability for the Superintendent, but as stewards of the taxpayer’s money, we ask you to favor the public interests of accountability and transparency over the Superintendent’s desire for budget flexibility.

We also question how the Superintendent can seriously put forward a budget for consideration by the School Board, the Board of Supervisors and the public, with over $15 million dollars, or more than 60% of the total budget, in a single line item entitled “salaries and benefits” under the Instruction category? In the interests of public accountability, we feel the Superintendent has a duty to provide a detailed breakdown of salaries and benefits in each expenditure category, by position and Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) account code.

In conclusion, we ask that you please do not accept the proposed School Board budget, which does not eliminate identified waste, cuts to the core of our education system and does not accurately represent the publicly expressed priorities of the people of Goochland County. Thank you.