Adequate funding for our schools

To the editor,
The Commonwealth of Virginia provides each local school division approximately 50 percent of the funds needed to operate their public schools. The Virginia General Assembly decides how much money Orange County will receive, based on a complicated formula entitled the Local Composite Index (LCI). Virginia uses the LCI to determine Orange County's ability to pay for its public schools. Four major parameters are used to compute the LCI: the number of students attending school in the county; real estate values in the county; adjusted gross income of county residents; and the county's income from sales taxes.
When the LCI is used to rank all local governments in Virginia, the results are very interesting. With the wealthiest local government ranked as number one, Orange County currently ranks 34th out of 136 local governments. As a comparison, Culpeper County ranks 39th and Spotsylvania County ranks 66th. The relative wealth of Orange County is one of the best keep secrets in the county.
The school board finds it perplexing that Orange County pays its most experienced teachers much less than their counterparts in Culpeper and Spotsylvania counties. For experienced teachers, the paid difference ranges from $5,000 to $15,000 per year. If Orange County wants to close this gap, an increased local effort will be required.
This type of contrast becomes even more surprising when one compares the per-pupil expenditure and average teacher salary between Orange County and all Virginia school divisions. The most current data available from the Virginia Department of Education is for year 2008. These numbers are reasonable to use for comparison because they represent Orange County's expenditure on education before the current economic downturn.
The Commonwealth of Virginia has 136 school divisions. Orange County ranks 34th in its ability to pay, but ranks 127th in per-pupil expenditure for education. Orange also ranks 101st out of 136 school divisions in average teacher salary. These inconsistencies have existed for a long time and it will take a sustained local effort over many years to reduce these discrepancies.
Residents of Orange County need to keep this information in mind when deliberating the board of supervisors' advertised six-cent real estate tax increase. It takes more than money to have a good school system but without increased financial support from the county, it will be an overwhelming task. Even with level funding from the board of supervisors, this is going to be a very difficult budget year. Level funding would enable the school board to reduce the number of layoffs but some teaching positions would be eliminated. Please take the time to let the board of supervisors know your opinion on adequate funding for Orange County Public Schools.
Jerry Bledsoe
Judy Carter
Jim Hopkins
Donna Waugh-Robinson
Lou Thompson
Orange County School Board