Liaison committee members for both the Patrick County School Board and the Patrick County Board of Supervisors debated the locality’s contribution to the school division during an April 4 meeting.

Lock Boyce, chairman of the supervisors, said his board voted to cap the local match at $7.1, “the exact amount (of the local contribution) in fiscal year 2015-16. I suggest you cut some more. If it was good enough for 2016, it’s good enough for today.”

The school division amended the initial $8.4 million budget request to $7.7 million, which includes $82,000 set aside for travel expenses.

Jane Scales Fulk, of the Dan River District, asked Schools Superintendent Bill Sroufe for details about the division’s travel plans.

Sroufe said the school board – not the supervisors – sets the amount of travel and other expenses in the school division’s budget.

Boyce, of the Mayo River District, said the spending plan also included an $11,000 raise for Sroufe.

The superintendent explained his contract allows him to take a raise each time teachers, etc., receive one. However, teachers have gotten pay hikes three times during his tenure, and Sroufe said he did not take a raise until this year. Then, he said he took the 2 percent raise approved by state legislators. “I started in January getting the same 2 percent,” he said.

Sroufe said all schools in the county have been fully accredited for the last two years and that his goal is “for the schools to be fully accredited. We are 19th in the state on performance. We moved from 75th to 19th place.”

He also noted that the division spends 62.8 percent of the total budget on instruction.

The cost per student is estimated at more than $11,000, Boyce said the school budget showed. “We could backpack ‘em up and get ‘em into Carlisle for that,” Boyce said of a private school in Henry County.

Sroufe noted the school division followed the county’s lead and contacted the auditor to ask him to calculate the portion of the local match. Sroufe said he did not understand why committee members were satisfied with the auditor’s response to the county, but not his response to school officials.

He reiterated the auditor’s finding that the minimum local match was $7.7 million, and said if the local contribution was less than allowed by law, the county could “take it up with the” Attorney General.

Sroufe then left the meeting.

Walter Scott, who serves on the school board, asked County Administrator Tom Rose for his opinion.

While he said he sympathized with the division and understands “there are a lot of variables,” Rose suggested the school board work with the lesser amount of local funding “and then look to see what the debt service is.” He also requested a line item budget rather than the current categorical document.

“Teachers, the school system all together need a raise. That’s about a quarter of a million” dollars, said Scott, of the Smith River District. “When you add the debt service” and raise, the total is the $7.7 million requested by the school division, he said.

If the $7.7 million is approved, “you’re taking my biggest revenue stream and you’re cutting 92 percent of it. That leaves me with 8 percent to run the county,” Rose said.

Brandon Simmons, vice chairman and of the Dan River District, said “we are going to take half of that no matter what,” because education generally is the biggest expense in any locality.

To make additional cuts, Boyce suggested the school division hire an expert “to go over your personnel and see who’s needed and who ain’t.”

He said a supervisors meeting in May attracted several teachers and other school personnel, many who detailed their concerns. “There was not an empty seat in the room,” Boyce said. “Most knew very well they were risking some type of retaliation.”

“They were all on the same page,” Rose said. “They felt intimidated, harassed and they were afraid to come forward.”

“Give them my phone number. I can’t fix it if they don’t come to me,” Simmons said.

Boyce said he could tell the school board where cuts were needed; however, because he fears a lawsuit, he would only detail those cuts in a private meeting.

Basically, “a lot of raises were given to people who don’t teach and aren’t productive,” Boyce said. “You need to fix this.”

Simmons, who took his seat on the school board in January, said he has been on the board three months. He noted that it takes time to address issues. “You’re insinuating I’m not doing my job,” he said.

“You’re tap dancing around what you need to do to make these (additional) cuts. You’ve got the money. You know where (and how) to fix it,” Boyce said.

Scott said the county is “cutting the school board pretty heavily” while giving emergency services additional funds for career medical and fire personnel.

“It’s frustrating on the school board side to see ya’ll spend money. We’re asked to cut half a million or a million” while EMS expenses are added into the county’s budget. “Ya’ll will go down in history as the ones who destroyed the volunteer EMS system,” Scott said.

He also defended the board’s travel costs.

“If you go to any of these meetings, they charge you out the wazoo, they charge you between $150 and $200 just to walk in the meeting.” Most of the ones the school board attends are mandated by the state, he said.

“We have a state mandated responsibility to provide fire, EMS, police” and other services, Boyce said. “There are things I’m sure ya’ll have heard about in the school system that are not mandated” expenses.

Both Simmons and Scott said they were willing to meet with supervisors in the future, so long as those encounters are civil.

Officials also discussed making the local required match to the school division, and incorporating the debt service into the county’s overall budget, bus or other leases, and a proposed step pay increase for teachers.