A tough year is ending

I've not posted in a while on this blog, largely because it's a relatively slow time in terms of city council business. We adopted the FY 2010-2011 budget in May, and after lots and lots of meetings and work leading up to adoption, June is a slower time.

It was a difficult year, with major reductions or eliminations of services, reduced school funding and a generally difficult financial period. City staff worked dilligently, with an eye towards efficient delivery of services at reduced funding levels. Staff carried out this task with optimism, seeing opportunities during this time to create a more streamlined government focused on the core services that government should provide residents. There's more work to be done, but difficult times force us to think outside the box.

It's also important to recognize that, by and large, taxpayers have recognized that expectations for services and programs like they were only a few years ago is unrealistic. Having the community understand the difficult task of simply balancing the city's budget has made the process immeasurably smoother. Protecting the city's school system from debilitating cuts in funding, and largely supporting the temporary 2% increase in the city's prepared foods tax to help offset these reductions to our schools, was a real testament to the priorities Roanokers have set for our community.

The next fiscal year's budget will be as tough, if not tougher, than the one we just adopted. The practical effects of the national recession have caught up to Virginia and caused localities to endure the brunt of the revenue reductions that are passed on by the Commonwealth. We should continue to work as a community to maintain realistic expectations and to make sure that the priorities of residents are also the priorities of the city government. Let's find more opportunities to better serve residents with a disciplined, responsible government.

More Reason to Prioritize

We have now been delivered news that gives us even more reason to prioritize in the City and to remain focused on those things that are vital to a community's well-being, present strength and future prosperity: our schools.

The Virginia Department of Education informed us today that using their new cohort method for calculating graduation rates, our City's schools have only graduated 51.6% of our seniors in four years. This new number to what has been an ongoing problem should provide us even more of an impetus to refocus our energies as a City on the things that can bring our community together, united behind the common goal of working to transform our schools into not just good schools, but rather great schools.

We often spend time focusing on such matters as spending millions of dollars on a golf course or other capital projects. We are in an economy that is contracting and has cost a couple of trillion dollars in wealth to pension funds during the last couple of months alone. Now is the time to step back, look in the mirror as a community and decide whether we like what we see and whether we must have these capital items right now.

Our schools can be our greatest asset or our biggest boon. Now is the time to commit to doing what it takes to making our schools first-rate, to put aside capital projects that would be great for the community, but that are discretionary and require sound finances and a strong economy with increasing revenues. We must work to bring more and better jobs to the City, which requires a firm committment to improving our schools and to providing them with the resources needed to turn out well-educated, well-rounded students qualified for the 21st century workforce.

Now is the time when we must tighten our purse strings and realize that we can't always have everything, but that a community's core committment is to its children. Without great schools, the future of those children will be tougher and tougher. And our City's future is tied to that future.