Local school systems still face major cuts

Despite receiving millions in stimulus money from the federal government, Danville and Pittsylvania schools still faced major budget cuts for the 2009-10 school year, resulting in the elimination of 36 positions between the two systems.

Both school systems have consolidated programs and deferred projects in addition to eliminating positions through layoffs and attrition.

Danville Public Schools

After state budget cuts, Danville Public Schools’ budget was $5.1 million below last year’s, Superinten-dent Sue Davis said. DPS received just over $4 million in stimulus funds for the next two years, and Davis said they planned to use about $1.8 million of that and $994,000 of lottery money to balance the budget.

To bridge the remaining gap, DPS enforced a 10 percent budget reduction on all departments. They eliminated 33 positions through attrition and layoffs, with all but six of those employees transferred into vacant positions. The 33 eliminated positions comprised 10 classified, 20 licensed and three administrative.

Class sizes would not be affected, Davis said. Teachers did not receive an across-the-board raise, but Davis said they would receive a step increase, or credit for experience, to keep up with the state average.

“It’s just been a really difficult budget year for us,” Davis said. “We had to make some hard decisions. The decisions we make are always for the benefit of our students and instruction; instruction comes first.”

DPS also set aside a portion of targeted stimulus funds for special education and Title 1 math and reading programs in elementary schools.

“We worked really hard to not (negatively) impact programs,” Davis said. “We did have some consolidations and we will start rolling those out this summer. We’re real confident that the level of instruction will remain the same as this year, in addition to being enhanced in some areas.”

Pittsylvania County Schools

Pittsylvania County Schools received almost $3.6 million in stimulus funds, all of which will go toward keeping jobs, Superintendent James McDaniel said. The budget is $3.1 million less than last year’s.

The school system did not have to lay off any employees, however, and eliminated only three positions through attrition. Those positions included a nursing vacancy, a maintenance position and an administrative assistant position.

“What we said was most important,” McDaniel said, “was we were not going to add one-tenth of 1 percent to the unemployment rate in Pittsylvania County. We were not going to add to an already desperate situation with unemployment.”

McDaniel said before receiving the stimulus payment, PCS had been prepared to cut “well over $6 million” from its budget, including a 3.5 percent across-the-board pay decrease. The current cuts “weren’t as impactful,” he said, and they did not need to implement the pay cut, although salaries are frozen. They were also able to add $650,000 in lottery funding.

Additional cuts came from eliminating $35,000 in vehicle replacement and by reducing the bus lease by half. McDaniel said PCS spends $350,000 each year to rotate out old buses, but will spend only $175,000 this year.

Pittsylvania County Schools will also use federal Title 1 and special education money to pay for those programs rather than local money, McDaniel said.

“We did not have to look at personnel, program or salary cuts,” he said. “We feel good about that as an organization – to maintain jobs, salary and programs that will make kids successful in the classroom.”

Pittsylvania County Schools also cut $700,000 from the maintenance budget, deferring projects. McDaniel said that money had been added to the budget last year for special projects to be used on an “as-needed” basis.

There was not a scheduled plan for projects, he said but rather a general list of needs, from upgrading lights to repairing roofs.

“(The maintenance department) would assess situations and determine how that money needed to be spent,” McDaniel said of the $700,000. “It was only in the budget for one year and we were able to take that money back out. The drawback obviously is if we have a special need in a school, we won’t be able to fund that.”