Lee County school representative warns of multimillion-dollar shortfall, outlines options for raises

Mister Dean, speaking to the Lee County Board of Supervisors at a recessed meeting on June 12, said the local school system faces a budget shortfall of roughly $4.1 million and described a state compensation-supplement rule the district could use to fund raises.

"We presented you all a budget that started out, I think, 7,870,000.00," Dean said, and later described a matching rule he said the district verified with the Department of Education and Richmond officials: "half of that would be a $160,097.50, which would provide us with $775,051 of compensation supplement that we could use for raises." Dean attributed the legal interpretation to the state code and the Department of Education's review.

The school representative said the district finished the school year with about 2,737 students and expects roughly 2,730 next year. He told supervisors the district serves about 612 students who "identify with a disability," including 49 identified with autism, four with traumatic brain injuries and at least two who require feeding tubes. Dean said those counts increase the district's service needs and staff-to-student ratios.

Dean described recent additions and unplanned increases in county requests that affect the budget: a courthouse repair estimate of $300,000, a $650,000 increase for EMS, roughly $914,000 tied to the jail, juvenile court services that doubled and added roughly $220,000, and further increases for DSS and CSA. He said the budget as published left a shortfall of $4,595,135, and that including a roughly $500,000 expected receipt from a planned tennis-courts property sale would reduce the shortfall to about $4,095,135.

On tax revenue math, Dean said the county's equalized rate came in near 51 cents and that one penny of tax would raise about $142,624. He said a tax rate of 79 cents would "balance it to the almost the penny," but he framed that as an illustration of the scale of the gap rather than a recommendation.

Dean also answered board questions about operational details at schools: rentals of construction equipment used on school grounds, the status of certain vehicle uses, the disposition of scrap metal and boilers, and whether firearms purchased previously were held by the school system. On the rental question, he said he would get exact figures and conceded he could not give precise amounts on the spot. "I can tell you that we paid more than we got," he said about the equipment rental arrangement.

Dean urged cooperation between the school board and the county board and offered to provide follow-up numbers: "Anything that I can help with, I can get you an answer. It may be Monday. We work 4 PMs during summer." He also asked the supervisors to consider the district's required-local-effort formula when weighing cuts: "Every dollar that you all save or you take out of our budget ... also has the math is $4.84 of state money that we lose as well," he said, referring to how local reductions affect state funding.

The discussion included repeated requests by supervisors for backup figures and for the school representative to provide written numbers after the meeting. Several supervisors and staff flagged that some budget items were not in the published paper because timing was uncertain, and Dean said he would provide updated figures for the board and the public.

The conversation closed without formal county action on school funding; Dean said he would follow up with the requested documentation and figures.