McDonnell Freezes School Funding Formula
Veronica Garabelli
Capital News Service
Kaine froze the Local Composite Index, or LCI - a complex formula that determines how much a locality should pay for basic kindergarten-through-12th-grade programs and how much funding it should get from the state.
The LCI assigns each school division a score, such as ".75" or ".51," based on the locality's adjusted gross income, taxable retail sales and property tax base. The lower its score, the more money the locality gets from the state government for basic education - and vice versa.
In the Robin Hood system of school finance, Kaine's decision created winners and losers: It protected school divisions whose LCI had increased and whose state funding would have decreased; but it hurt localities whose LCI had dropped and that were expecting more state aid.
Since December, school officials across the state have waited anxiously for what Virginia's new governor, Bob McDonnell, would do. Now they're finding out.
McDonnell's office confirmed Friday that he would uphold the LCI freeze implemented by Kaine. Kaine proposed freezing the LCI until the 2012 fiscal year. He said this would protect 97 school divisions that would lose money if the formula were re-calculated.
Details will be given to agency heads this week, McDonnell's press secretary, Stacey Johnson, said in an e-mail to Capital News Service.
McDonnell's decision will please some localities in Southwest Virginia but will hurt some others including Scott County. Scott County's Composite Index remains at .1849 and the system will not receive more state funding as expected.
Jim Scott, Scott County Division Superintendent, noted that the school system is one of 19 systems statewide whose Local Composite Index would have decreased because of declining enrollment.
"I guess the best thing that could have happened would have been if the Governor lowered the index for schools that dropped and kept other school division's constant," Scott explained. "But that's not how it has turned out."
According to information released by the Virginia Department of Education, Scott County's ability to pay fell to .1821 but due to action by the governor, the LCI remains at its current rate, .1849.
Some other school divisions in Southwest Virginia are benefiting from the governor's decision.
Dr. Lorraine C. Turner, superintendent for the Russell County Public Schools, said her school district will benefit from the LCI freeze.
"If it's frozen at last year's rate, the state will give us more money, as opposed to asking the locality to pay for it," Turner said.
But McDonnell's decision to uphold the LCI freeze will upset several other school districts - in addition to Scott County including the public schools in Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties.
Their LCI scores would have dropped this year: Fairfax went from .76 to .71; Loudoun fell from .67 to .58 and Prince William dipped from .44 to .40. That should have meant more money for those school districts. However, Kaine - and now McDonnell - decided to freeze the funding formula at the previous scores.
Fairfax County supervisors are so upset that they are considering legal action.
"This is really a cut-and-dried issue," said Jeffrey C. McKay, supervisor for the county's Lee District. "It's outright discrimination against Northern Virginia."
McDonnell's decision will cut $61 million from the Fairfax County Public Schools' budget, said Paul Regnier, a spokesman for the school district.
According to the school system's web site, Fairfax County's schools budget for the 2010 fiscal year is $2.2 billion - so the funding cut amounts to 3 percent of the budget. Regnier said that could mean larger class sizes, the elimination of full-day kindergartens or the curtailment of foreign language emergence services.
Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, said he was furious when he heard the formula would be frozen at the level set by Kaine.
Petersen noted that because the real estate market had fallen in Northern Virginia, Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties received lower scores on the scale than they had in the past. Ordinarily, the lower scores would have resulted in more money from the state for basic education.
"Now, thanks to the plan that was put forward by Gov. Kaine, the rules are being changed on us," Petersen said.
On Jan. 12, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 10-0 to look into legal action if the McDonnell administration upheld the freeze in the school funding formula.
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For more about the Local Composite Index and school funding in Virginia, see this item on the Virginia Department of Education's website, http://www.doe.virginia.gov/school_finance/budget/compositeindex_local_abilitypay/index.shtml