RICHMOND – The Virginia Senate on Sunday proposed restoring almost $130 per student in state support to local schools.
The House of Delegates’ proposal for helping local school districts took a different approach to local school aid, through an increase in the state’s contribution to the Virginia Retirement System.
Sen. Charles Colgan, D-Manassas and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said its members wanted to boost the funding Gov. Bob McDonnell proposed for public schools in the coming year.
“We are recommending a net $100 million more than the budget as introduced for elementary and secondary education to regain some of the ground lost during the last two sessions” when the General Assembly cut education funding almost 20 percent, Colgan said.
Colgan said the Senate’s budget would provide almost $88 million as the state’s share of the per-student funding increase.
The Senate also proposes an additional $18 million for textbooks, Colgan said.
The Senate proposal also would boost contributions to the teachers’ retirement program by 2.4 percent starting next fall.
Del. Bob Tata, R-Virginia Beach and a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said its budget proposal “will take some immediate financial pressure off school divisions’ budgets while ensuring an increased level of funding” to the state retirement system.
That increase will not have to be matched by local school boards, Tata said. But he added that school divisions should start budgeting now for a retirement increase that awaits them in 2013.
Differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget will be settled in the next two weeks during negotiations in a conference committee appointed by House and Senate leaders.
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