The adoption of the biennium budget involves a lot of rhetoric but also a view of the details as it relates to our local school districts. 

In my case, I represent two separate school districts in the 34th State Senate seat:  Fairfax City  and Fairfax County.  Each receives a separate line item in the budget documents which report school district funding.

Let's look at Fairfax County, which is the largest school district in the state ....

Under the House proposal, Fairfax County is set to receive $469M next year -- nearly the exact same as the Senate version.  Each proposal makes cuts to the Governor's proposal, which is inevitable considering our revised economic forecast.  Each shaves back funds for the preschool initiative. 

However, there appears to be a major discrepancy in the "out years" due to the House Budget failing to give Fairfax credit for its higher costs and salaries, the so-called "prevailing wage" policy which has helped our County schools stay competitive with their neighbors in the D.C. metro area. 

As a result, the House budget slips to $1.5M lower than the Senate in 2010.  It will go even lower than that ... as the discrepancy grows larger due to the "prevailing wage" omission.

These small changes can have major impacts in future years.  It's imperative that the Assembly not adopt this policy when it finalizes the Budget prior to March 8th.