There’s some inside baseball here but bear with me:  Before he left office, Kaine proposed freezing what is called the “local composite index”.  This is the formula that is used to determine how state aid is distributed for education.  It is adjusted once every 3 years (pretty sure it’s 3) to reflect changing demographics, etc.  Of course, our demo’s have gone down significantly since the last adjustment and we were due to get about $3 million more.  The incoming administration has elected to affirm this freeze.  We’re getting hosed here!  When we finally stood to benefit, they change the rules.  It ain’t fair and it is really hurting the schools.  With our change in demographics, we need that help.  Instead, those in Richmond are taking a decsion based on politics and keeping that money in ROVA…. leaving us to twist….again.  Wonder if they will give us any leeway on our mandates?

Funding for schools delivered by a long-established formula shouldn’t be a political football.  Here’s a good article about it that Randolph sent me.

Breaking news – the Governors new budget eliminates the car tax relief program.  He has replaced the lost revenue with a 1% income tax surcharge.  This means that the state will still get the revenue out of us but not in the form of a property tax.  I don’t have all of the numbers but it looks like the new tax will collect somewhat more than the car tax did.  However, it is hard to tell yet, the car tax reimbursement program was $950 million but that didn’t get everyone’s tax down to zero so it still collected some amount north of that.  the new tax looks like it will collect $1.3 billion in the first year.

The new budget also cuts state aid to localities that is dedicated to police funding by 20%.  Don’t know the impact on the schools yet but it isn’t likely to be good.

We’re sure to get more info and analysis from VML over the weekend and I’ll post it as it evolves.