County Board rejects $693K school request

By Susan Gibbs
Published: April 17, 2008

Greene’s School Board has requested $693,000 in local funding, but the County Board of Supervisors is saying all it’s going to get is the equivalent of an estimated $207,000.

That $207,000 consists of roughly $138,000 in new money and the approximate $69,000 that it’s going to cost the County to take over buying buses and replacement vehicles for the school district.

The response from the Board of Supervisors to the School’s request comes at a time when, according to Superintendent of Schools Ray Dingledine, Greene schools “received $160,000 less (than we had hoped for) from the state.”

But Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Steve Catalano is reading the numbers differently.

Dingledine announced the figure to the School Board at its meeting on April 9.

Reached after the April 9 School Board meeting, Catalano said, “The schools received $1.2 million more from the federal and state governments than they did last year. In a year of flat enrollment, I don’t see why they need more than $1.2 million to cover inflationary costs.”

At the School Board meeting, Dingledine drew the School Board’s attention to “doing away with the Health Cottage the way we have it now” as a way to save money.

The Health Cottage is a program instituted more than a decade ago to ensure access to adequate health care and to assist uninsured local children. But it continued on after the state instituted its Family Access to Medical Insurance Security (FAMIS) program and Martha Jefferson set up its Greene Family Practice.

It has been serving the School Division’s staff and students, giving, for example, physical examinations to athletes, and treating headaches and stomachaches.

Vice-chairman of the Board of Supervisors Buggs Peyton has objected to asking the County’s taxpayers to pay for a program that had gone from what he has said might have being a necessity to a convenience. “Many of those same taxpayers can’t afford health insurance for themselves,” he has said.

According to Greene County Public Schools Business & Facilities Director Kim Powell, the Health Cottage – which School Board members said might be the only program of its type in the state—has an estimated operating cost of $167,000 per year.

But this school district has more pressing needs: The Code of Virginia requires schools to provide the professionals needed to care for specific needs of students. And, with the number of students with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, on the rise here, school medical personnel have called for more licensed staff to help care for them.

At the April 9 School Board meeting, Dingledine told the School Board that doing away with the Health Cottage and redeploying and adding to existing health staff would create a “$63,000 savings.”

However, the school district will continue to offer diagnostic services for students in grades K-12 and athletic and special education physicals to students. A nurse practitioner – a position not required by the state, for which this school district pays $54,790 a year—is also given compensatory time if physicals take place after regular school hours.

In addition, though the school administrators have explained that there is a small charge for services, they have admitted that those fees are not always collected.

At the April 9 meeting, Dingledine assured the School Board that a better system would be put in place for collecting those fees, but Flynn objected.

“I have a problem with continuing to provide services that are supposed to be assessed where the fee is not collected; then giving someone paid time off for doing those things that we should be collecting money for,” said Flynn.

“Are we in agreement?” Flynn asked Dingledine. “This person is … not going to be taking compensatory time because (she) has provided services to the students.”

The Greene school district has, in addition to the nurse practitioner, a registered nurse who is paid $44,750, and two licensed practical nurses. It plans to hire one more licensed practical nurse.

Regardless, the School Board voted to approve the plan submitted by the administration with the understanding that it could be changed if necessary.

That step taken, School Board Chairman Darcy Higgins wondered how to convince the Board of Supervisors to give the school administration more money.

“Maybe they want a five-year plan spelled out. Whatever it is (they want) I think we can provide it.”

But it’s not a five-year plan Catalano says he is looking for: “Overall, this is a tough year … a lot of people fear for their jobs. Business is not as usual. Taxpayers need someone to advocate for them. The Board of Supervisors is trying to encourage County agencies to cut sacrificially to reflect the times.”

While the Board of Supervisors cannot tell the School Board how to spend its money, it can make suggestions.

At the Board of Supervisors’ workshop March 19 workshop, Peyton noted that this school district has two assistant superintendents. He suggested that when Dingledine retires this summer and current Assistant Superintendent David Jeck replaces him, that the slot Jeck vacates not be filled.

But at the April 9 School Board meeting, it was announced that Jeck had indeed been replaced.

Reached after that announcement was made, Peyton commented: “The School Board is very good at giving explanations for what it wants, but it doesn’t give enough justification for what it needs.”

The School Board, says Higgins, has requested another meeting with the Board of Supervisors on April 22. A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for Tuesday, April 29 at 7:30 p.m. at William Monroe High School.