Chesterfield County- The Future Begins With Us

While I am sure that most of us today were busy working today and taking care of our families and paid little attention to the follow-up to last nights State of the Union address, I urge all residents of Chesterfield to begin to focus their attention on matters of hand here in Chesterfield as opposed to Washington. I undertand that is a bit harder said than done given the twenty four hour news cycle concentrating on Washington but there are things afoot here in Chesterfield that could undermine our ability to continue to remain a First Choice Community.

The Board of Supervisors will release soon a targeted property tax rate to be debated that must be published before they can take up the matter in a mere two months. This published rate by law cannot be exceeded by vote but the rate certaibnly can be lower than the proposed publish rate if citizens get engaged.

The rate is important because recently the School Board has asked the BOCS to increase the property tax rate from 95 cents to 1.01 per $100 of assessed values. The justification for this increase is that such an increase would be revenue nuetral in that with the falling property assessments the amount paid by residents would roughly be the same as 2009. Such an increase would add some 19 million in tax revenue with the CCPS getting around 12 million.

This effort is meant to address the 40 to 50 million in budget cuts facing the School Board which is centered around a reduction in teacher ranks, establishing furloughs and potentially authorizing the elimination of school athletics saving 1.8 million.

These efforts are said to be essential in large part because the monies from the Federal Stimulus Package that were to be marked for schools (some 19 million) in Chesterfield was removed by then Governor Kaine.

Its time that residents get engaged. There is a growing conservative Tea Party group here in Chesterfield and I urge them to engage in this process and expose those leaders that have implemented gimmicks in order to please voters and passed unneccesary zonings to satisfy the special interests.

Many residents who challenged the current Board members for lowering the tax rate some two years ago are outraged. The very thing that many warned the members has happened. The time has come for these leaders to be held accountable and for conservatives to rally around each other and signal the beginning of the end for some of these members.

The Schools are a huge issue with regard to the County budget. Yes the CCPS should be fully audited and their budget completely overhauled in search of savings. There is absolutely no reason why the CCPS should be operating at levels exceeding State mandates. The high salary levels of top adminstrators both in and outside the CCPS is alrming. If the average adjusted gross income in Chesterfield is around 80K than some of these folks are earning 3 times that average in salary and car allowances. 3 times.

The fact that such car allowances are being sold as neccessary to attract top notch people is a dated and tired arguement. Are they telling us that the County cannot find anyone qualified in America willing to run CCPS for under 252K. I think its time that the CCPS and the BOCS get a big dose of reality from citizens.

Fact si there is plenty of blame to go around. Its not merely the CCPS fault for the shortfall in their budget. The BOCS shares a lions share of the responsibility. Members like Daniel Gecker from Midlothian have overseen in the last nine years the largest misguided growth pattern in the Chesterfield's history. The lack of defined comprehensive planning has resulted in unsustainable capacity levels that will require of schools to raise the number of students per classroom to over 30. Increasing the class size by a mere student is said to save the CCPS 112 teachers and some 6 million.

Why would raising these class level sizes be neccessary in the first place? Ill-conceived planning has created an environment where new schools must be built and older schools modernized faster than the amount of revenues can be collected to address these needs. The costs of construction skyrocketed in terms of new schools as well. Members like Gecker have been quoted has stating that any effort to focus money at the middle school level are unjustified and yet new middle schools have come on line and very well may continue to be required. Gecker while on the Planning Commisssion before joining the Board after the 2007 elections has directly contributed to the woes facing Chesterfield in terms of excessive capacity in the housing market driving down home values and requiring the neccessary adjustments to cash proffers in the coming years whether he believes in them or not. The County had the opportunity to raise the cash proffer levels to comparable standards of other Virginia localities with similar growth rates, but members like Gecker did not support an increase to the proposed level and forced a lower rate all be it higher than the previous years. The fact that the CCPS is facing capacity concerns is a direct result of approving zonmings for areas without the capacity to support children in the classrooms. This forces hastily planned school constrcution to meet the demands and creates an environment where Chesterfield families face new school boundaries and potentially school shuffling.

Its simple. You do not permit housing developments in areas where there are no seats in the classrooms for students. Obviously these leaders failed to get the message in Field of Dreams- "If you build it, they will come". Well, they built it and now our schools are taxed as well as our infrastructure and in particular our roadways. Traffic is at its highest levels as well as vehicular accidents and yet still the Board continues to approve more developments.

Will residents accept that fact that the CCPS may have to eliminate school athletics? I mean, how can we reconcile the fact that we are saying that our young people are out of shape, many obese and at the same time take away such programs that promote the very best things in our youth; health, teambuilding, and respect for authority. Its as if they are saying that the 1.8 million has no real "benefit" to our children.

I would support for sure the ability for parents to pay for their children to participate in sports. I think the case can be made that it makes little sense to require all residents to pay for such programs anymore than it makes sense for all of us to pay for other peoples healthcare as proposed in Washington. There needs to be a shared responsibility between the County adn citizens if we want to keep these programs and a big start would be the ability for volunteer coaches and assistants to come from outside the CCPS system. Should we be pay higher salaries for teachers willing to coach neccessarily if we can get volunteer coaches from our community? Should we be willing to eliminate programs before taking a look at administrative salaries? Should our teachers be the frontline casualties first?

We as citizens have some very hard questions to face in terms of the direction we want Chesterfield to go. It must start with us and not the leaders in the backrooms. We must demand that programs that we believe benefit our children and our communities be funded and those that seem to merely benefit government be eliminated. There is no reason we should be spending funds on government facilities like new courtrooms, new adminstrative buildings, new libraries when another one already open can maintain the traffic when we need a focused laser on schools and public safety.

There will be plenty of opportunity in the coming weeks for citizens to get engaged. Will you join us or sit back and let Chesterfield begin to fall behind the curve. The future of Chesterfield is in our hands.