Putting ‘faces behind the issue’
RICHMOND — Rappahannock County officials traveled to Richmond last Monday to make an appearance before a subcommittee of the General Assembly as part of their efforts to receive more school funding from the state.
County Administrator Garrey Curry, Rappahannock County Public Schools (RCPS) Superintendent Shannon Grimsley and School Board Chair Wes Mills attended a meeting of the Elementary & Secondary Education Funding Joint Subcommittee which addressed, among other agenda items, the state’s Local Composite Index (LCI) – a formula used to determine how much school funding is allocated to each locality.
RCPS has been pushing for more school funding, with Curry and Grimsley insisting that the state’s LCI formula results are “misleading” for Rappahannock County. The formula assesses property value, taxable retail sales and adjusted growth income to determine its LCI value for each locality.
Monday’s subcommittee meeting served as a work session for legislators to consider recommended actions ahead of the 2025 budget session. Grimsley said it was essential for RCPS to have a presence at the meeting.
“It was important that we be there in case there were particular questions from the subcommittee members about our issue, but also to meet some of the members in between meetings to put faces behind the issue and set the stage for follow-up dialogue during the upcoming 2025 session,” Grimsley wrote in an email to the Rappahannock News.
She said at the last subcommittee meeting, more than half of the comments submitted to the body were from Rappahannock, and General Assembly staff was directed to look further into the LCI issue.
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Rappahannock County Public Schools Superintendent Shannon Grimsley, School Board Chair Wes Mills, County Administrator Garrey Curry and lobbyist Elizabeth Parker attend a subcommittee meeting in Richmond ahead of the legislative session.
Curry took to the podium during public comment to express appreciation for the work being carried out at the General Assembly.
“Thank you very much for the work you’re doing. It’s very important,” said Curry. “We’ve been working with the current formulas for some time. They work great for many, many, many communities. Not so much for ours. We appreciate that you’re putting in the hard work to figure it out for everybody.”
Following public comment, Virginia Senate Finance Committee (SFAC) and House Appropriations Committee (HAC) staff addressed funding concerns for RCPS.
Subcommittee staff said that as of 2022, Rappahannock is the 122nd “least fiscally stressed locality of 133 cities and counties.” But, there are some recommendations included in a legislative review, which includes additional funding for districts that lack an “economy of scale,” along with “geographic adjustments to address high costs of labor in different areas of the state,” according to the report.
In a commentary published in the Rappahannock News last week, Curry and Grimsley cited factors unique to Rappahannock – including an above average wealth gap, the majority of property being subject to tax exemptions and limited commercial enterprise – that have resulted in a maximum LCI value which misrepresents the county’s ability to generate tax revenue.
Correcting Rappahannock’s LCI value could bring an additional $1.3 million to RCPS, according to the commentary.
RCPS has been lobbying for the removal of a 2008-recession-era cap on supplemental aid — Rappahannock is the only county in the state affected by this enactment, resulting in flat funding from the commonwealth while other localities saw a boost in basic aid funding in FY2024.
During the meeting, state senators and delegates heard a presentation from the nonprofit Learning Policy Institute on a potential school funding transition process. Senior Researcher and Policy Analyst Mike Griffith of the Learning Policy Institute said the process of adopting a new school funding formula typically takes one to three years, with one year being a “pretty ambitious” timeline.
School officials ‘cautiously optimistic’ about state funding increase
Twenty-four hours after school officials went to Richmond, they gave a report about their visit with state delegates and senators to the full School Board Tuesday, sharing their “cautious optimism” for increased state funding.
“There’s an avenue for us to continue our argument, and … there’s ways to get this done,” said School Board Chair Wes Mills, who attended an Elementary & Secondary Education Funding Joint Subcommittee meeting Monday.
Mills said that after the Richmond meeting while “idling in the hallway,” Rappahannock officials were able to speak one-on-one with lawmakers, and he feels they have at least “three champions” on the subcommittee, and one member that may need more convincing.
SIFT Thermometer 12.9.2024 – For paper 12.9.24
Rappahannock County Public School’s latest effort in fundraising money to retain a lobbyist trough the legislative session.
“It was good for us to be there. We were basically witnessing this process. But the pinnacle event really was in the hallway after the whole meeting was over, where we had to connect, and I do think we have some advocates,” Mills told members of the School Board.
Superintendent Shannon Grimsley said the Rappahannock schools’ lobbyist, Elizabeth Parker, has confirmed that the schools have a chance in the legislative session. Around half of the $30,000 needed to fund her continued work had been raised as of Tuesday.
“What we know at this point is it’s worth going forward. It’s not going to be a ‘it doesn’t have a chance’ kind of thing … and that’s what yesterday’s adventure really told us,” Grimsley told the School Board.
Mills said the subcommittee discussed at its last meeting that over half of the total comments received on its online public comment system were from Rappahannock County. “So we did our job,” he said.
Board member Missy McCool asked when they will know if the lobbying was successful or not, and Mills said it will likely be March — “way past our budget cycle” — before they know definitively if more school funding will come from the state.
“We’re gonna end up going into our budget cycle knowing absolutely nothing, just like last year and the year before, and the year before,” Mills said. “So we’re going to be planning as if we get nothing and plotting ahead … from my perspective, it looks very promising, but I’m afraid — I’m cautiously optimistic.”
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