School Budget Cuts

RTD has some of the numbers on the Richmond Public Schools budget woes. If you are thinking of fleeing to the counties they are facing the same situation or worse. Chesterfield county has cut $32 million.

Richmond cut $9.7 million for this school year, and with that money went 78 positions and a 50 percent reduction in funding for field trips. Summer school, tuition assistance and after-school programs were cut by 25 percent. The cuts would have been deeper — $16.2 million — had it not been for stimulus help.

But the cuts may not end there, even for the current year.

Lynn Bragga, director of finance for Richmond’s schools, said an additional $2 million may be taken before the end of school next summer thanks to the city’s diminishing sales and personal-property taxes, from which the schools get a big chunk of their budget.