Petition to fully fund Richmond Public Schools

This year the school budget is looking at more cuts.

April 16, 2014; 9:36 AM • by Richard Hayes

Southside resident, former school board candidate, and school advocate Bert Berlin has put together a petition to ask the council and mayor to fully fund Richmond Schools. The argument is simple, money was taken away when time were bad, now that times are better give the money back.

For fiscal year 2010, Mayor Jones and the City Council cut nearly $8 million from annual payments to Richmond Public Schools because of the economic recession. Now the recession is over and city revenue has increased by over $100 million. However, neither the mayor nor the council have restored the cut funds.

Petition text below.

Fully fund Richmond Public Schools by restoring funds cut by the mayor from the fiscal year 2015 budget.

The public schools in Richmond, Virginia, are funded primarily by money from the Commonwealth of Virginia and the City of Richmond. In recent years, although the enrollment in the school division has been relatively constant, the portion of the City’s general fund that is spent to support the schools has decreased from nearly 25% to just over 20%. This percentage is less than almost every other school system in the state. This year the City’s mayor has submitted an overall budget that cuts 3.8 million in City funds from the School Board’s proposed budget. If the City Council does not restore these funds the children in Richmond will not be getting the best education we can provide them.

This petition is to inform the City Council that we are tired of our schools being underfunded. We expect them to restore the funds that were cut from the school budget by the mayor.

You can sign the petition at Change.org.