Hungry birds

 

We still need a bigger worm

About a year ago, GOMM opined that the county needed a bigger worm of revenue to feed all the hungry county agencies. This year is not different, and maybe more complicated.

The Goochland County budget for FY26, which begins on July 1, is still in the sausage making stage. The Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget on April1 and adopt a budget and set tax rates for calendar year 2025 on April 15. Time is short to iron out the wrinkles.

Townhall meetings expected to focus on the budget have been scheduled as follows: District 1 on March 24 at Byrd Elementary School; District 2 and 3, on March 31 at the County administration building; and Districts 4 and 5 on March 27 at the Residence Inn in the Notch, opposite the Wawa on Broad Street Road. All meetings begin at 6 p.m.

On March 4, Goochland Superintendent of Schools, Michael Cromartie Ed. D., presented the school division budget approved by the school board. Go to https://www.goochlandschools.org/page/budget-and-finance for details.

As adopted by the school board, the FY26 school budget is $45,467,414, representing an overall two percent increase from FY 25 and a 4.7 percent increase in county transfer from last year. School funding is the largest expense in the county’s proposed $148.6 million budget. Cromartie’s presentation was comprehensive and did an excellent job of justifying proposed expenditures. He also mentioned items that were not funded in the school board’s adopted budget

 At a March 11 work session between the school board and supervisors, Cromartie prioritized unfunded items by tier. Go to “watch county meetings at https://www.goochlandva.us/  to hear the entire discussion.

The superintendent said that the holdover funds budgeted but not spent from the FY24 budget was used for teacher salary market adjustments to make Goochland more competitive with its deep pocketed neighbors.

Unfunded items for FY26 include stipends for middle school coaches, including those who work with its excellent robotics team were estimated at $32k.

The need for “weapons” detectors that are also able to recognize “vapes” was discussed. Due to training requirements, these could not be deployed before the start of the 26-27 school year to allow time to collaborate with the Sheriff’s Office on their use. Goochland is still in a “discovery” phase for this equipment. Louisa County has expended about $500k on a system.

Items in the capital improvement plan to be funded in FY26 include a new chiller for the high/middle school complex, which is now more than 20 years old. Should this device fail, the school could not be used for an extended period. A $2 million item for architectural and engineering fees for the Career and Technical Education and arts addendum at the high school was also proposed for the CIP. Schools contended that this was part of the 2021 bond referendum. Capital improvements are one-time expenditures for big ticket long lived items like buildings and equipment. The operating budget funds recurring expenses.

The 2021 referendum authorized issuance of general obligation bonds to fund a new fire-rescue station and badly needed courthouse in addition to the elementary school whose cost was about $15 million more than anticipated.

Neil Spoonhower, District 2, taking part remotely, said that the county is exploring what $26 million will “buy” in a courthouse. The final cost may be higher, but the available sum is the starting point.

The supervisors and school board got into the weeds about educating Goochland students. To hear the entire discussion go to the county website goochlandva.us, and find the video under the BoS March 11 on the “watch county meetings” tab.

There was agreement that, while Goochland schools are doing well, they can do better to help students struggling to meet achievement thresholds. Schools contend that this requires more staff, supervisors pointing out that the county budget must fund the needs of many departments.

Spoonhower summed up the budget situation. He contended that the county is in a unique position. “We’ve been presented, for the first time in 11 or 12 years with a budget that isn’t balanced. It would be helpful if we could have a quick discussion of what are the expectations of both boards, our superintendent, and county administrator.” He said the supervisors could fund specific items or decide how much money can be carved out of the budget to give to the schools and other county departments who also have pressing needs and let them decide how to allocate the money.

Interim county administrator The Hon. Manuel Alvarez said that in the past, during the budget process, the supervisors would determine, using expected revenues, to propose an amount to the school board on which to build its budget. Until this year, that worked well.

“I think we did that this year with a “keep it flat” (from last year) approach except for a 3 percent salary increase for employees. Then we ask what are your other needs and see if we can make it happen.”

Alvarez said that the proposed budget presented on February 18 was not balanced. The former county administrator “left some money on the table and said you guys figure it out when I’m gone. Now we have to balance the needs of the county and the schools. There were a lot of needs that were not considered in his proposal.”

Finance Director Carla Cave and Alvarez have been sifting through the numbers and have some ideas but “we’re not there yet,” said Alvarez. “Requests from schools, fire-rescue, the sheriff, and county departments are probably twice the amount available.”

Charlie Vaughters, District 4 supervisor, said the meeting offered good insights into school funding.

The “revolution” board elected in 2011 worked very hard to fund schools with available resources. Let’s hope we do not revert to the bad old days when a former superintendent metaphorically waved her doctoral degree at the supervisors, inferring that they were intellectually incapable of understanding a school budget after refusing to justify expenditures. She then demanded an additional million dollars for unspecified purposes to prevent Goochland schools from “circling the drain.”

During its March 4 meeting, the Board of Supervisors voted to change its financial management policy by reducing the target percentage of the general fund kept in reserve from 60  to 35 percent of the total annual adopted general fund budget of the subsequent fiscal year plus the non-local portion of the school operating fund budget. It is unknown if this change will have any impact on the FY26 budget.