Governor Kaine's proposed budget-cutting amendments place a lid on the number of non-teaching staff in the public schools that are funded in part by the state. The maximum state-supported number of support staff will be one position for each four teachers. Makes sense to me!

Here are his remarks about cutting back on educational overhead:

"The one area that has been held completely harmless in the first 3 rounds of expense cuts has been K-12 education. In fact, as we were cutting most state programs in the biennial budget passed last March, we increased funding for public education by approximately $1 billion for the biennium in accord with the normal re-benchmarking process. But, the revenue reductions necessary for 2010 are big enough that we cannot ignore the single largest state expenditure in this budget.

I believe it is prudent to allow our public schools to get through the current academic year without disruptive adjustments to their budgets. There will, of course, be the usual technical amendments in the current year for changes in enrollment and the sales tax revenues dedicated to public education. But, for 2010, I propose two adjustments in the way we fund educational activities outside the classroom.

First, I propose an adjustment in how the state funds educational support positions, those local school personnel who are not in the classroom. In the Standards of Quality, we use formulas to cap the state’s investment in teachers and other instructional personnel. The most common formula is the student-teacher ratio, i.e., the number of teachers that the state will fund per a certain number of students. This formula varies in different grades, but the basic concept is sound. The state contributes funding for positions up to some maximum and any positions beyond that ratio are funded purely by the local government.

The state has not used a similar methodology to cap funded positions among support personnel. As a result, the growth in state-funded support personnel has been much faster than growth in state-funded instructional personnel. Support positions are very important, but there is no reason that we should not set a reasonable staffing ratio for these positions, just as we currently use for teachers and other instructional personnel. In fact, the absence of any such ratio ensures that the support costs in educational budgets will continue to grow at an escalated rate. That trend will jeopardize needed instructional investments such as efforts to move Virginia teacher salaries nearer the national average.

To save over $340 million in fiscal year 2010, I propose that we place a funding cap on state spending towards support staff. The state will fund one support position for every 4.03 instructional positions. This ratio represents the 3-year linear weighted average of Virginia school divisions’ prevailing practices. Districts that hire more support personnel would do so with local funds, as is currently the case with those jurisdictions that hire more teachers than the prevailing ratio. Along with the cap, I am recommending a loss reduction clause to help mitigate loss of funds for jurisdictions that are most affected during the transition to this new policy.

For additional savings of nearly $27.5 million, I propose eliminating state general support for school construction grants. I also propose to use $55 million in Lottery Funds currently directed toward school construction to cover base instructional expenses. This proposal is not meant to downplay the importance of modern facilities for our public schools, but eliminating the modest state contribution to school construction is preferable to eliminating classroom funding.