First things first - I don’t think enough can be said
regarding the heroism of our fallen colleagues at Sandy Hook Elementary in
Newtown CT. They brought honor to our
profession. I, for one, am not surprised
by their devotion to the children. Those
with like hearts serve all across America.
I mourn for all who died in Newtown.
The Governor presented his budget amendments today.
Before we get into the details, let me say that we may argue
that a 2% raise is far too little for teachers, many of whom have not seen a
raise in years. VEA supports a 4% increase. We live in the 8th
wealthiest state but our teacher salary lags 12.5% behind the national
average. Questioning the amount of the
raise is fair. But, I do not think we
should criticize the Governor for the method he employs to give the raise. He provides the state share of the 2% raise,
requiring localities to put up their share in a local match to access the state
funding.
This approach has a long history. Governor Robb discovered that the state is
prohibited by the Constitution of Virginia from mandating teacher salary
increases. He sent the money, asking
localities to give raises, and localities spent the funds on everything but
teacher raises. Governor Baliles first
employed the required local match to raise teacher salaries, and this approach
worked. Using this approach, the
locality must certify that they have given the desired raise to qualify for the
state funds. VEA has encouraged this
approach since the Baliles era. When the
state supports teacher salary increases this is how it should be done.
Now to the details:
The Governor proposes diverting ½ cent of the 5 cents sales
tax from the General Fund to transportation funding. The General Fund is used to fund core
services, such as education, while transportation has traditionally been funded
with non-General Fund revenue. The
Governor said that this will amount to $500 million per year by 2018. Education now receives about 30% of General
Fund revenue, so this would be a $150 million annual loss to our schools by
2018.
The Governor alluded to the fact that the last time the
state provided funding for a teacher salary increase was the state share of 3%
in 2007. He provides $58.7 million for
the state share of a 2% salary increase in the 2014 for all SOQ funded
instructional positions. He provides $15
million of competitive incentive grants for Strategic Compensation (This is not
merit pay.).
$277,000 is provided to fund expand utilization of the effective schoolwide discipline system.
The Governor provides $708,000 for STEM recruitment
incentive grants. Qualifying teachers
would get $5000 the first year and $1,000 in each successive year.
He provides $220,000 for a Governor’s Center for Excellence
in teaching, residential summer professional development academies for
exemplary teachers.
$4.9 million is provided to fund staffing standards for the
blind and visually impaired.
$1.14 million is provided for a Reading Specialist in each
elementary school scoring below 75% on the 3rd grade reading SOL
reading test.
$210,000 is provided for a summer program on
entrepreneurship for middle school students
The Governor cut $12,157,638 in funding for cost of
competing adjustments for support positions in Northern Virginia.
$178,806 in additional funds is provided to support
implementation of the Tuition Tax Credit/Voucher program which passed in the
last session.
There is a change for the future funding methodology for
school nurses. This does not look like a
good thing, but I am going to have to dig to get the details.
That is a quick-and-dirty overview of the budget actions
proposed by the Governor. I’ve tried to
list what looks significant. Stay tuned,
for as the late, great Senator Hunter Andrews used to say, “The Governor
proposes, but the General Assembly disposes.”