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The chair of the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors gave the disappointing news to the members of the Rockbridge County School Board in person when the two boards met last Thursday.
The supervisors, he said, would not be able to provide local funds for the 7 percent pay raise for all district employees that the School Board had requested.
“I know you all had asked for 7 percent, and we would love to give you 20 percent,” said David McDaniel.
“The teachers do a fabulous job and I know the last couple of years have been extremely tough,” McDaniel continued. “But the way the state does K-12 education, especially in Rockbridge County – the state says, ‘Hey, we’re going to give you a 7 percent raise’ – but what a lot of people don’t realize with the SOQs (Standards of Quality establishing minimum staffing standard that Virginia schools must provide) and the LCI (the local composite index which indicates the division’s ability to pay for their required share of the SOQ) [is that] the state is only funding about 25 percent and the locality has to fund the 75 percent. It’s just too much for our budget.”
As of last Thursday, the Board of Supervisors was still working to close a $660,000 gap in next year’s budget, County Administrator Spencer Suter said. (See the front page story for an update on the county budget.)
While 7 percent pay raises were out of reach for the county, the supervisors are incorporating a 5 percent school employee pay raise in their budget, for which the School Board members expressed their gratitude.
“We certainly appreciate the support you all have given us,” Superintendent Phillip Thompson said.
McDaniel mentioned that the Board of Supervisors is budgeting for two teaching positions for the alternative education program at Maury River Middle School as requested in the categorical estimate of needs approved at the School Board’s March meeting.
Getting Ready For Renovations
Prior to their meeting on Thursday, members of the Board of Supervisors joined the Rockbridge County School Board members in walking through the Floyd S. Kay Vocational Center – now the Rockbridge Innovation Center - to visualize the upcoming renovations.
“It’s a little different when you’re looking at it on paper in 2-D and all of the sudden you’re walking through and trying to visualize it,” Thompson commented at the Thursday meeting.
Within the school, teachers and administrators are preparing for the renovations by sifting through current materials that can either be reused or disposed of.
“Mr. [Paige] Owens, director of technology and Career and Technical Education, is working with the teachers over there and Dr. (Mike) Craft in trying to clean out stuff,” Thompson said. “It’s a little bit of a culture shock – I’m calling it a culture shock – for them having to go through and clean out things that’s been there for 30 years. When you look at that big Dumpster they have out back, it’s hard work trying to go through some of those things that have just been sitting there that entire time.”
In an attempt to preserve the project’s budget, the CTE department staff is cutting costs where they can and saving what they can from the current building.
“We didn’t want to include trailers to house kids for a year, because those are extremely expensive, and it cuts into the budget,” Thompson told the boards. “We didn’t want to purchase a lot of things that we already have such as desks. If we need new desks, we will buy those things over the course of a couple of years and put it into our budget and figure out how we’re going to do that ourselves. The facility was our biggest concern in respect to getting the nicest, most modern facility that we can get.”
Board of Supervisors member Leslie Ayers wondered if this method of recycling and reusing would be applicable to the building’s current energy system. Thompson said that like most items in the CTE building, the heating and cooling equipment would also need to be replaced. “It’s outdated and inefficient at this point compared to modern standards,” he said.
Ayers was adamant about selecting an energy source that will serve the facility well and save on energy expenses down the road.
“It might not be cheaper, but I certainly don’t want to see that part of the budget mean that we’re paying a lot more energy costs because we chose a [cheaper route as opposed to the best option],” she said.
Ayers recommended that the RCSB apply for some of the available energy grants to install an efficient energy system that will ultimately save the district money.
Thompson assured both boards that they have been searching and applying for all grants they can find to aid in financing the renovations. Building the Rockbridge Innovation Center itself will cost approximately $8 million, but the Board of Supervisors is allocating an extra $1 million to the project to cover soft costs and closings, Suter noted.
“We’re going to try to keep it at $8 million,” Thompson commented. “We’ve known all along that if it comes in over, we’re going to have to come to you all and say, ‘Hey, this is where we are.’ I am hopeful that it comes in at the budget amount and not a penny over, but I will say not very often does it happen that way.”
Assuming the project’s schedule stays on course, Thompson believes the project will go out to bid in late May or early June. As of now, construction is set to begin on July 12.
