Late in 2010 there was considerable debate over "bonus" pay in Chesterfield County being passed out to County employees right in the middle of what can only be described as one of the biggest economic downturns coupled with a severe housing crisis facing the nation. Now it seems our Board of Supervisors has seen fit to raise its level of pay while asking our School System to begin the process of examining the potential elimination of positions within the system because of the anticipated shortfall of school funding coming both from the State and the Federal government. The fact is the schools face millions of dollars in cuts directly on the horizon and our Board of Supervisors has known this for more than a year.
I am not really big supporter of trying to examine things in the vacuum that elected officials would seem to prefer, but the timing of the pay increase appears to be rather short-sighted. It opens those leaders who remain on the Board in 2012 to direct criticism for voting themselves a pay increase while simultaneously asking the CCPS to look at cuts with regard to schools. When the Board refers to "cuts" it is almost always talking about personnel. This out-going Board likes to tout Chesterfield County Schools as a "world-class school system" and yet at each step along the way seems to in act measures that frankly would undermine its potential for even greater success.
Of course, we are not talking about a real impact from a budget perspective in terms of the pay increase which is the argument you will hear from Supervisors, but is that really the point? The timing and appearance of such an increase basically reinforces the continuation of the belief that our local political system is self-serving and certainly demonstrates an indifference to citizens during this economic crisis. The Board has routinely sought to reward bonus and benefits to government employees instead of using "surplus" revenue from its own budget to bolster operations, update technologies, and simply look for more efficient means of doing business.
I have been highly criticized by some leaders in an effort to condemn me as an apologist for the schools and teachers in the County. I believe this effort firmly illustrates the disconnect our leaders have with citizens. I am not a teacher, nor do I work for CCPS in any capacity but do volunteer as much as I can and see each and every time I visit the schools as a guest exactly what our teachers face. Apparently, our Board of Supervisors has become complacent in its responsibilities and role in the process with regard to education in the County. While classes that I used to volunteer in would have 17 or 18 students, these same students are now sitting with up to 25 in some cases. When you are talking about kindergarten classes, ones that used to have aides when we were looking at 17 or 18 are know operating with no aides and teachers are educating up to 25. Teachers have already faced pay cuts of up to 2%.This hardly makes much since coming from the two bodies of County leadership; Board of Supervisors and School Board that seem to be ready to fire off platitudes about the status of our schools and not really address the real issues in our classrooms with any proposed solutions.
The pay increase for Supervisors seems to beg two questions. One, were we not paying the Supervisors enough salary in years past or two are our Supervisors facing increased responsibilities and workloads given the growth of the County that warrant an increase? If the latter is the reason behind the increase than the question remains why our Supervisors did not carry out 2007 campaign promises and increase the size of the Board to reflect our growth. A Supervisor may find that having 60,000 citizens to represent a daunting task, but frankly they should have seen this coming a decade ago. Many of us firmly expected an increase in seats on the Board with the 2010 census. You may recall the realignment of some districts as the General Assembly basically redrew the lines for this months elections. We could have used the census data and added Magisterial Districts. We currently have five Supervisors representing 316,236 citizens. Ask yourself how many councilman there are in the City of Richmond representing less population? Answer. A heck of alot more than five! Again, Chesterfield leaders seem content with consolidating power amongst five. The result is such votes as the pay increase to themselves.
So while we cannot seem able to budget increases in salaries for teachers, speech therapists and those addressing the special needs of our children, how is it that the "Board of Five" finds it appropriate to elevate their own salaries amidst a dark outlook with regard half of the County budget?
Info: CCPS received 38 million in Federal Stimulus FY09/10- likely not to renewed and likely not to be made up for by the State.
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