Budget Good News-Bad News

3/29/06

Dear School Supporters,

At the WJC School Board's public hearing on the budget on March
7, Support Schools Now, the WJC Education Association, Virginia
Organizing Project, and the League of Women Voters appealed to
the school board to include important items in its budget.

Many of you also contacted the school board via email. Thank you!

The good news:

Thanks in part to our advocacy (and the still somewhat hard-to-
believe assumption--but sworn to be true by the WJC
administration--that the schools will experience NO increase in
health care costs) the school board did raise staff salary increases to
5%--equal to that offered to teachers. It also added an additional school
bus.

The bad news:

* still not enough trailers to maintain the School Board's class size
guidelines
* still no additional Bright Beginnings preschool teachers
* still no new operating capital equipment for any schools
* still not enough computers and technology
* still not enough buses (only 6 requested, 13 are needed)

The School Board did not go as far as we wanted them to go, but at
least some progress was made and we thank Board members for
that.

The adopted budget can be found here:
http://www.wjcc.k12.va.us/content/admin/finance/Budget/FY07-AdoptedBudget/index.shtml

Now the budget goes to the JCC Board of Supervisors and
Williamsburg City Council. Hopefully the county and city will be able to
fully fund the schools' operating and capital budget requests.

The county plans to release its proposed budget to the public on
April 17.

Support Schools Now will help to keep you informed about
how the county's budget will affect the schools.

The opportunity to address the Board of Supervisors regarding the
proposed budget will be on April 25 at the county's public hearing.

Thank you for supporting our schools.

Mike Ludwick