A statewide view of school budget cuts
Last week Governor Bob McDonnell announced intentions to “unfreeze” the Local Composite Index. To say this has some people worried, is an understatement as it will mean serious loss of funding for schools in certain parts of Virginia.
McDonnell is quoted is saying, “For nearly forty years, the Local Composite Index has been an impartial means by which to determine state and local responsibility for education funding in Virginia. The application of this Index has always been done in an objective manner, using the most recent fiscal data to most fairly apportion state resources.”
So what is that fiscal data? According to the Virginia Department of Education web site the Composite Index is calculated using three indicators of a locality’s ability-to-pay:
- True value of real property (weighted 50 percent)
- Adjusted gross income (weighted 40 percent)
- Taxable retail sales (weighted 10 percent)
And then, as the VDOE explains it, “Each locality’s index is adjusted to maintain an overall statewide local share of 45 percent and an overall state share of 55 percent.”
Below is a locality-by-locality look at the projected impact of unfreezing the LCI. Localities in black expect an surplus while counties in red expect a loss. More interesting, perhaps, is how much each locality is expected to lose/gain. Hover over the image to see a scaled look at the loses and gains. “Redder” localities are losing more, while “blacker” localities are gaining more. White localities are gaining or losing very little.
Big gainers
The obvious winners are the three Northern Virginia counties. Combined, they can expect to see almost 120 million dollar gain. Overall 41 localities stand to gain money, with an average gain of $3,551,761.
| Locality | Gain |
|---|---|
| Fairfax County | $61,807,753 |
| Loudoun County | $34,496,120 |
| Prince William County | $22,989,524 |
Big losers
Unfortunately, Richmond is one of the big losers along with Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. Combined they can expect to lose over 37 million dollars. Overall 95 localities stand to lose money, with an average loss of -$1,226,079.
| Locality | Loss |
|---|---|
| Virginia Beach | -$14,923,023 |
| Richmond City | -$11,172,537 |
| Chesapeake | -$11,086,597 |
Change across the state
The winners win big and the losers lose big, but everyone else stays pretty much the same — if losing a million bucks can be considered “the same.” Actually, to put that number into context, for the localities that lose money it is on average 3.24% of their budget for the 2010-11 year (although Northumberland, Middlesex, Albemarle, and Essex are all expected to lose over 10% of their budget).
- As a measure of the amount of change a locality can expect (either up or down) here’s the average of the absolute values: $1,927,204
- Without the top three gainers, the average of the absolute values is: $1,073,732
- The median of the absolute values: $416,945.
The data are available as a public Google Docs spreadsheet. Have fun!
Special thanks to Ryan Nobles of NBC12 for using his dimples connections to help us get these numbers. And speaking of NBC12, if you’re interested in learning more about the LCI, check out their video footage of former state superintendent Bill Bosher putting it into layman’s terms.
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Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Two more data sets that would be interesting to include are the number of pupils per system, and the % that are in poverty. The first puts some perspective on the per pupil $$ involved, while the 2nd sheds some light on the disparity of how the LCI is factored.
Fairfax has 170,000 students. Richmond has 24,000. Fairfax’s gain is not as ginourmous as it might appear.
RPS has 74% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunches, 19% in Fairfax. Shouldering the weight of the region’s most impoverished citizens, Richmond’s needs are higher but are not factored into the LCI.
It’s an interesting formula to use to decide this.
It seems to be the bursting of the housing bubble that is shifting the index in favor of the NOVA counties. I wonder what the index looked like before the bubble got so big in the first place.
And then what are the factors that make RVA suffer in the index? I’m guessing gentrification(isolating us from the worst of the bubble burst) and more young professionals(generally without kids, with pre-school age kids, or choosing private school for their kids) choosing to live in the city. That sound about right to people smarter than me?
This is great Ross. Thanks.
McDonnell says the index is an ‘impartial’ means to allocate funds. That it may be, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good one or even a fair one. John M’s point about percentage of pupils served who are in poverty is a well-taken. Rather than just re-arrange funds through a flawed (albeit impartial) index, why not fix the index?
Looking over the spreadsheet data, I’m shocked at the wide range of funding per pupil in each county, from about $2300 in some counties to $7300 in Lee County! Geez, that’s a BIG difference!
Thanks for adding the pupil count info. If I’d realized that my “wouldn’t it be nice…” wanderings actually had results I’d have asked for donuts instead.
The truly damning thing in all of this is that, even if the index is frozen and/or the General Assembly manages to plug up some of the holes, RPS administration will continue to drop napalm all over the classroom while Dr. Brandon takes a less than $2000 hit.
Perhaps news outlets should also be covering the fact that, while programs are slashed, teachers are cut and furloughs are proposed, the 2010-11 superintendent salary, even with this so-called cut, will still be almost 9% higher than during 2008-2009 school year.
There are only three Northern Virginia counties? What happened to Arlington County? And isn’t Loudon spelled LOUDOUN? The illustration is what this means is excellent, however, the presentation should probably be polished up a bit.
Do they use a composite index to determine how much money they spend for the Northup Grumman IT project?
The composite index works because most teachers (with the exception of john m) and administrators don’t have a clue about working the math out and get intimidated by big numbers.
It also works because the spineless members of the Legislative Black Caucus have done nothing since the early Seventies when this nonsense was enacted to right this wrong. (Thanks, Dwight, Henry, Doug, Benny, etc….. All of whom have been sucked in by being made to feel important, instead of remembering their base and giving more than lipservice about the needs of the people of the City of Richmond).