School Board suggests mediator but council chilly on idea

The Waynesboro School Board has suggested a mediator to settle differences over funding between the board and Waynesboro City Council, but members of council don’t see the necessity.

The two boards have been at odds during the past year over the reappropriation of a yearend fund balance back to the school board for use, and continued payment by the school district on debt service for the renovation of Kate Collins Middle School from a funding source that no longer exists.

School Board Chairman Doug Norcross broached the idea of a mediator in a Jan. 5 letter to Waynesboro City Manager Mike Hamp, saying Hamp and Waynesboro Schools Superintendent Robin Crowder could identify one.

“The Waynesboro School Board feels the current discourse with some members of council does not serve out community,’’ Norcross said in the letter. “It is important we reestablish a positive, professional working relationship in order for each of us to serve our constituents.”

School board member Jeremy Taylor suggested the idea of a mediator in December, and said he believes an objective third party could help.

“This would be positive for both the school board and the council,’’ Taylor said. “At this point not to figure who is right and wrong. Let’s get toward a solution acceptable to both parties.”

While there has been discussion of a joint meeting between the two bodies, Taylor said he does not see any reason to schedule another one without a mediator present.

Waynesboro City Council member Jeff Freeman said he thinks spending money on a mediator is wasteful and premature.

“I don’t think a mediator would help until we know the issues,’’ he said. “I’m not sure why they want to go and pay for a mediator. It’s their budget. What will a mediator know they don’t know? I don’t understand the mediator part.”

City Councilman Mike Harris also does not want a mediator involved now.

“The first step is to have a good dialogue and to understand what the schools need,’’ he said. “We are certainly not at an impasse where we need a mediator.”

Harris said he is not against funding education, but simply wants “the best bang for the bucks.”

The two bodies held a contentious meeting last April over discussion of a yearend fund balance.

And Hamp wrote a letter to Crowder in November saying that the city would continue to fund the schools under a 42.5 percent annual revenue formula.

Hamp said the council maintained that $200,000 of the annual fund balance should go to pay debt service on Kate Collins, and that the school board should also pay $367,000 to Collins debt service that previously came from state lottery and construction money.

The state lottery money is no longer available as a source for school construction.

Virginia Department of Education Spokesman Charles Pyle said the lottery no longer funds non-recurring expenditures.

He said the lottery money goes to specific education programs that include school breakfast, K-3 class size reducation, the Virginia Preschool Initiative and others.

The crux of the November letter from Hamp to Crowder was that the council wanted to consider appropriating money to the school district by classification.

Funding by classification would specify the amount of the local appropriation in areas such as instruction, administration, maintenance and others as opposed to offering a lump sum of local money to the Waynesboro Schools.

Such a specific local funding formula is done in only a handful of Virginia school districts.

Harris said the idea of funding by classification is still on the table.

“We won’t resolve funding by classification until we sit down and talk,’’ Harris said.