Of Budgets and Money for Schools

News on the budget front out of Richmond on Thursday, at least on the surface, appears to be good news for public schools across the commonwealth.

The budget-writing House of Delegates Appropriations Committee, led by Del. Lacey Putney of Bedford, will unveil its budget roadmap Sunday, and word from The Associated Press is that it will include an additional $140 million for public schools.

Putney said Thursday his committee had found a way to increase aid to public schools by allowing for increases in keeping with inflation, a tactic Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposed budget eliminated.

Public schools, which have taken body blows in budget cuts over the past several fiscal years in Virginia, are close to the breaking point. The impact of those cuts was cushioned by federal stimulus dollars in past fiscal years, but now they’re gone. And just at the point that Richmond is taking steps to shore up the woefully underfunded state pension plan, but steps that are giving school divisions across the commonwealth nightmares.

And we believe Putney, the longest-serving legislator in Virginia history, has heard the word from his constituents, that something must be done.

After all, it was Putney, an independent who caucuses with the Republicans in the House, who introduced legislation to raise the state sales tax, through a public referendum, to help pay for transportation needs.

A wide array of parties spoke up for the bill in a subcommittee hearing, but the House Finance Committee members unceremoniously killed it. Filled with tax-hating Republican delegates, they lacked the courage of Putney to say a key government service needed an infusion of dollars.

And now, Putney, through the budget he and his committee have put together, is telling his fellow legislators that public education, like transportation, is at a financial tipping point.

In the grand scheme of things, $140 million spread across the commonwealth’s more than 130 school divisions doesn’t seem like that much. But the message Putney is sending is loud and clear: We simply can not continue to cut and then cut some more.

On transportation, state pension reform and now public school funding, Putney is telling his colleagues in the General Assembly that the time has come for them to be leaders and to serve the public that elected them. Make the tough decisions that some ideologues won’t like but which are in the public’s best interest.

If the Republicans in the Assembly choose to ignore his sage advice, they’ll do so at their own peril. Core services of government — public schools, transportation, social services — are on shaky ground. Are they capable of exhibiting just a fraction of the political courage of the gentleman from Bedford County?