My name is Brian Wheeler. I am the parent of a fourth grader at Murray Elementary. Tonight I am speaking on behalf of the Murray community as Vice President of our PTO. I'll also point out that I am a taxpayer and voter.

A great deal has changed since I last spoke at this hearing two years ago. At that time, our greatest concern was class size at Murray and I was handing you a check for my self-imposed tax increase. Then my daughter was in one of the two grades at Murray with a population bubble. She had 27 students in her second grade class. 

[Let me just interject here that Ken Boyd's recent letter to you stating our student teacher ratios are based on a 10:1 or 15:1 ratio is a gross distortion of the "financial facts" as he calls them.1 Regular baseline class sizes are set in the budget in the 20:1-22.5:1 range. These are the real numbers our principal has to deal with. To suggest building-level decisions is the primary factor causing class sizes to swell to 25 is ridiculous.]

You responded to our concerns then by raising our real estate taxes to fully fund the education budget and for that we say thank you. It allowed, among other things, the addition of Class Size Emergency Relief to the budget for each of the last two years, something our school has been able to take advantage of to gain a few additional fractions of a teaching position.

It is a vicious cycle we have between Albemarle and the state. Sally Thomas and Steve Kolezar rightly challenge the state to cough up its fair share. However, it is also a vicious cycle between the Board of Supervisors and the School Board. If the School Board doesn't ask for it, you won't fund it. Imagine where we would be this year if you had not had the courage to support the school system's past two budgets, one of which required a modest tax increase? 

We won't settle for a second rate school system, and if the state won't pay its way, then YOU need to take revenue matters into your own hands until they do. We will pressure Richmond, but nobody thinks the state's priorities will be straightened out quickly.

This year's school budget has no new initiatives. What if we wanted art, music and media teachers fully funded in every school? Elementary strings, band or choir programs that would feed into a high school music program of Charlottesville's caliber? What if we wanted a laptop on every desk? What if we wanted foreign language in elementary school? 

I am not here tonight to ask you to raise our taxes. However, if you told me that the only way we could fund an exceptional education system, would be to raise our property taxes some more, I would support you, and a LOT of taxpayers in Albemarle County would support you. Clearly, Richmond is not coming to Albemarle's rescue anytime soon. 

Things are very different now than they were two years ago. The state is in worse shape and Albemarle is in better shape, because we placed a priority on funding education. Don't back down on that commitment now. We have gained a lot of ground, but this should not be the year to throw things in reverse.

Albemarle should set its own agenda for quality of education. The state's agenda is a joke, in the form of the Standards of Quality and their lack of funding even those minimal goals. It is totally inadequate. 

Ask not how little you can get our school board to beg for, ask if they are requesting enough of you, to put our school system well beyond its peers, in its ability to educate our children to the standard of excellence your constituents demand.

Don't back off from the 3.3% compensation increase the school board determined would make us competitive. 

Support the school system's complete request for one-time money to open Baker-Butler Elementary. Bob Tucker's budget only provided $125,000. Please fund the full request of almost $538,000 from your reserves.

Don't back off the conservation easement program, as the Daily Progress recommended. Have we reached the point we have to sacrifice part of what makes Albemarle a wonderful place to live so we can pay the teachers we are entrusting with our children's future a competitive wage? I don't think we have reached that point.

In summary, we need you to put excellence in education on your priority list for this budget. Thank you.