In Md. and Va., Signs Of the Tough Times

The Prince George's County Board of Education last night approved a $1.6 billion budget that eliminates almost 800 jobs, while Arlington County's schools chief unveiled the first budget of his 12-year tenure with a reduction in total spending.

The actions showed anew how the economic recession is hitting home for Washington area school systems.

The Prince George's board unanimously endorsed a spending plan for the 128,000-student system that omits cost-of-living raises and some seniority-based salary increases for employees. The budget also rolls back several programs begun during the 2 1/2 year tenure of superintendent John E. Deasy, who left in December for another job.

Among other cuts, the budget developed by Interim Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. eliminates 144 positions for parent liaisons, who act as a bridge between parents and school staff. Two programs to bolster academic performance will be reduced. An initiative to split school administration into nine zones will be modified to five zones, and a program to train 10 resident principals will be eliminated.

The board will vote next month on a separate measure to close a dozen schools and redraw school boundaries, which could save another $10 million.

An hour and a half of public comment last night at the meeting in Upper Marlboro focused on a handful of issues that affect a tiny fraction of the budget. Parents opposed the elimination of a $677,000 music and technology program at Berwyn Heights Elementary School, which officials had planned to expand to a second school, and $450,000 in cuts to the Comer School Development Program, which links child psychiatry with education. They also protested the effects of redrawing boundaries on the Thomas Pullen School in Landover.

After a lengthy discussion, the board voted to fund the Comer measure but to keep the Berwyn Heights cuts, pending an evaluation of the program's effectiveness.

Prince George's schools were not hit as hard as they might have been, thanks to a late infusion of $41.4 million in state aid, much of it through the federal stimulus package. Over the weekend, county officials dropped plans to furlough their 19,000 employees and increase the student-teacher ratio in first through third grades.

Still, board member Heather Iliff (District 2) said: "We are going to be making painful cuts. Staff are not going to be happy about it. Parents and children are not going to be happy about it. So I would like to dispel the myth that federal money plugged all the holes in our budget, because it didn't."

The budget, which now goes to County Executive Jack B. Johnson, may face additional cuts in coming months as county officials decide whether they will ask to waive the state's minimum education funding requirement. In addition, the federal stimulus package is likely to increase funding for special education and programs for economically disadvantaged students.

In Arlington, school spending would drop for the first time in the 12-year tenure of Superintendent Robert G. Smith under a $431.8 million budget he proposed last night for the fiscal year that begins in July.

That would be 2.8 percent less than the current level of $444.4 million, even though school officials project that enrollment will rise next fall by several hundred students, topping 20,000.

Smith's plan aims to preserve programs and class size. The school system would shed about 55 positions, replace five school buses instead of a planned 10 and trim certain minor construction and maintenance projects. There would be no cost-of-living raises, but teachers would continue to be eligible for seniority-based step increases.

"I think a reasonable person looking at what we're proposing and what's going on in other communities will be thankful that we are where we are right now," said Smith, who is retiring.

A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for March 17.