Dumb Letter to the Editor

I was reading the Connection Newspaper this week and saw the most bizarre letter to the editor in a while.  In it, Fairfax County School Board members Kathy Smith, Cathy Belter and Tessie Wilson were praising Senator Ken Cuccinelli for his support of securing additional money for K-12 education in Fairfax County.  Absent from the letter were the three other school board members who represent Cuccinelli's district- Ilryong Moon, Steve Hunt and Cuccinelli's likely opponent Janet Oleszek.

Fairfax County has a weird thing going on with school funding.  On one hand, county residents support fully funding the schools.  Generally Fairfax also supports candidates who want to do so.  However, when it comes to state funding there is problem, for every tax dollar devoted to education that comes from Fairfax County only twenty cents is returned through the Richmond bureaucracy to Fairfax schools.  That's because of a formula called the LCI (Local Composite Index).

So in the letter, the school board members praise Cuccinelli for seeking to change the funding formula- but they point out that other localities that gain from this formula are unlikely to support a change unless the overall money spent on schools increases enough that their new percentage of the formula does not provide a cut in the real dollars they receive.  In other words, if Virginia Beach gets 110% back and that is $200 million (this is only an example!) and under a new formula they only get 100% of money back, that amount better be $200 million or the Virginia Beach Delegation will oppose it.  Makes sense, right?  The only way that math works is if the overall money being spent is higher.

But this is what is so strange.  The one thing Cuccinelli has consistently opposed is more education spending. Sure, he supports more money that is already spent coming home to his district (that's a tough position to take), but he doesn't support increasing the overall dollars spent.  Thus, praising him for supporting this makes no sense, and shows a complete lack of knowledge from these board members to what his position really is.  For example, Mark Warner's 2004 budget did nothing to address transportation because it focused on education. In that budget the new dollars to education were sent through a new formula for school age population.  Basically this formula for additional dollars spent it equally per student across the commonwealth and school systems received dollars based on the number of students they were educating.  Given that chance to vote for more education money under a formula very favorable to Fairfax County, Cuccinelli voted "No". 

So I just don't see how these members can praise Ken for wanting to change the LCI formula, when they acknowledge in the same letter that the only way to change it is through additional funding (*ahem* taxes) which Ken opposes.  In short- If the school board position is that you can't change the formula without increasing the overall spending, and Ken opposes increasing the overall spending- then he doesn't support that position! I thought the letter came across as awfully flaky for those signing it, I've just never seen anyone praised by school board members for opposing more school funding.  Weird.  I think the only thing this letter accomplished was giving a lot of fodder for opponents of Tessie Wilson and Kathy Smith to mock their knowledge on the school issues they are supposed to know about.

UPDATE:  Kenton has a map.

Comments

[GhostofAlexanderHamilton]

The funding formula for the .25 percent increase in the sales tax is split between the composit index (favoring poor counties) and the point of sale (favoring large counties).

[Not Larry Sabato]

Are you serious? First time I listen to something Dave Marsden said and it turns out to be wrong! At his town hall meeting last year he said Dillard secured it under that formula. LOL.

[Not Larry Sabato]

The point is still the same, the Warner formula for money was much better for Fairfax than the current formula.

NLS - There is no such thing as "dumb letters to the editor," only dumb people who write letters.

Why the picture of a radioactive hamster?

[Not Jack Herrity]

The interesting part about the LCI funding debate is that the downstate boys oppose higher funding for the more affluent counties - even when they are held harmless. They say they worry about the rich counties getting richer. Vance Wilkins is the one who started that whole argument.

The other oddity to the funding debate is which counties are considered "donors." Essentially the donor counties get screwed because there are so few of them - they can't get a decent voting block together to change the system. But localities like Prince William, Virginia Beach, and a handful of other prosperous counties are actually not "donor" counties because of the screwy way the LCI is administered. It's a very screwed up system that is not likely to change anytime soon because the winners vastly outnumber the losers.

NJH

[Not Harry F. Byrd, Sr.]

NJH:

It was probably set up that way because the winners designed a formula to screw the outnumbered losers to begin with, right?

Here's the bottom line: Since 2001 the Republicans have controlled the legislature and yet scholl funding blows and transporation is choking the life out of commuters.

[Not Larry Sabato]

You have got to spell school right if you are going to attack Republicans for not funding it. :)

[Kenton Ngo]

Me go 2 skool 2 lurn.

Yes, I spelled school incorrectly. In other word, I have been "schooled." :)

[Ghost of Henry Howell]

The formula from HB 5018 (the final compromise in 2004) goes half by population and half by LCI. It is not from "point of sale."

[Ghost of Henry Howell]

If you understand anything from that last post (without an interpreter), then you are a total geek.

[Not Larry Sabato]

GoHH- Is it school population or county population?

NLS,

I think it is ADM (Average Daily Membership), which is fancy city-talk for school population.

BTW, I understand you GoHH -- ergo, I am a geek :)

[Kenton Ngo]

In a contest to see who's the wonkiest, I see that GoHH wins.

[Not John S. Mosby]

Sounds like Cucc is playing the standard Republican music - declare public support for something popular then help defeat it behind the scenes. Good stuff.

[t]

That's not a radioactive hamster. That's an androgynous liberal.

[t]

Cooch is right - We need to get a return of our investment out of public ed, rather than throw more money at the system.

[t]

Mike Farris said it best - the public school system is a Godless monstrosity. My daughter will be homeschooled. Some lowdown bearucrat doesn't know what's best for my daughter - I do.

t SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAKS

Ohhhhhhhhhhh, t speaks

[NOVA Scout]

It's interesting to see Cuccinelli running scared so early in the game. Clearly he understands that the anti-tax riff won't be enought to carry the day this time around.

[Jeffersonkindofguy]

Let's see if we can clear it up ...

In the past, sales taxes were distributed for education based on "school age population" (regardless of whether those school-age kids went to public school). Under that formula, it was calculated that Fairfax County taxpayers would have paid $61 million more in the new sales taxes and gotten back $53 million.

But what Warner and the General Assembly did was to change the formula to distribute half of the new sales tax proceeds using the Local Composite Index.

The reality, when the figures finally came in? Fairfax County taxpayers paid paid nearly $70 million in new sales taxes in Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006, and received back only $32 million of it.

In fact: the Warner formula was not "better for Fairfax County." It was worse than the current formula.

[Not Larry Sabato]

Jeffersonguy- That's almost a 50% return, much higher than the normal 20% Fairfax gets.

[Jeffersonkindofguy]

Let me get this straight: Getting back $32 million for putting in $70 million is BETTER than getting back $53 million after putting in $61 million?

With that kind of math, at least now I can understand why you're a Democrat!

[Not Larry Sabato]

That's not what I said.

Under the LCI formula, $70 Million would bring back about $14 million. So yes, $32 million is a heckuva lot better.

Of course $53 for $61 would be even better, but that's really not on the table. You aren't going to turn 20% into 75% in one move.

NLS,
Do you have a link to the letter?

Tessie Wilson is a republican, so praising Ken is not surprising. Cathy Belter is having some health issues and would not be able to write a letter and perhaps not have a good grasp of what was said in such a letter. Kathy Smith isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer but she is political and she is VERY much a democrat. She is also running for re-election in 2007. I assume that Tessie is too, if Sharon Buluva hasn't gone anywhere. Cathy Belter won't run again.

The only real surprise is Kathy Smith. Perhaps she thought it would make her look bi-partisan. Representing Sully district, that might have some appeal to constituants.

[Jeffersonkindofguy]

NLS,

I don't spend a lot of time reading the blogs, so I've only just now gotten around to see whether you've still got it wrong.

You do.

Let me see if I can make it simple: Sales taxes have not previously been distributed through the LCI. They were distributed on the basis of school age population.

The formula for distribution of the new sales taxes was changed to force some of it through the LCI -- which meant that Fairfax County got less than it would have if the state had distributed the new sales taxes the old way (school-age population).

The choice WASN'T LCI vs. new formula ... it was "school age population" vs. new formula -- and the new formula screws Fairfax taxpayers.

I understand that you have to try to make it look like a good deal for Fairfax since your party foisted this on Northern Virginia, but you've gotta stop comparing apples and oranges.

Whoever posted the January 1 comment also has it wrong -- it is not Kathy Smith with health problems, its Cathy Belter.

... which is why I don't read the blogs very much.

[Jeffersonkindofguy]

Retract the last comment on the January 1 posting.

This is what comes from reading too fast.