Medicaid Debate Dims Chance Of State Funding Boost For Schools (VA)
March 24, 2014
One of the Loudoun school district’s top legislative priorities for this year’s General Assembly session seems to be taking the back seat to the Medicaid debate.
The Loudoun County School Board requested in its adopted list of legislative priorities that state legislators push to restore the cost-of-competing funding adjustment, which provides more state tax dollars to public schools in Virginia’s most expensive counties.
The cost-of-competing program started in the late 1980s to help Northern Virginia school divisions provide competitive salaries in a region that had the highest cost of living.
Loudoun school district’s legislative liaison Gordon “Buddy” Fletcher said Loudoun County has not received its full cost-of-competing adjustment since before the economic downturn, “and I don’t see it changing this year.”
“There’s one word down here that has everybody shaking in their boots, and it’s Medicaid,” he said. “Neither body is considering any other large amount of money.”
The debate over whether to expand Virginia’s Medicaid program to include about 400,000 more residents—an option under the Affordable Care Act paid 100 percent by the federal government in the first three years and 90 percent thereafter—is split along party lines. The state Senate’s budget includes the proposal, and the House’s budget does not. It’s set the stage for a showdown that could push the General Assembly past its March 8 deadline to adopt a budget, and threaten to shut down the state government.
Both chambers’ budgets also provide for $5 million to provide cost-of-competing dollars statewide, but not the “fully restored” level of $36 million, according to Assistant Superintendent of Business and Finance E. Leigh Burden.
Several members of the House Appropriations Committee, including Del. Tag Greason (R-32) and Del. Charles Poindexter (R-9), support restoring cost-of-competing dollars, but Fletcher said barring a change in philosophy, it won’t happen this year.
“I think basically everybody understands why Loudoun should be getting it. The objection is the General Assembly trying to balance their budget without raising taxes,” Fletcher said.
On the plus side, Loudoun County Public Schools was prepared for this scenario. The schools’ budget drafted by Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick, as well as the budget adopted by the School Board last month, did not plan for cost-of-competing dollars. “…because none of these funds were proposed in the Governor’s Introduced Budget,” Burden stated in an email.
Both the Senate and the House budgets will mean about $990,000 in cost-of-competing money for Loudoun, well below the fully restored amount of $7.3 million. But that is almost $1 million more in state dollars than Loudoun schools had planned.
The School Board’s adopted $949.72 million FY15 operating budget calls for an additional $45.5 million over this year’s operating budget, as well as another $22 million boost from state, federal and other funding. The schools’ funding request is now under review by the county Board of Supervisors.