What matters most to local school divisions at this point is how much state aid they are likely to lose for the budget that takes effect on July 1 for fiscal 2011. That’s why we focused on those numbers in a front page story today about estimates compiled by the Virginia Education Association based on the likelihood that the Senate Finance Committee will propose an additional $723 million in cuts to state aid for education on Sunday.

But it’s important to note that’s a two-year number, so the VEA is estimating a comparable but not exact impact on schools in the 2011-12 budget year. For Chesterfield County, that’s an estimated $17.7 million, for a total impact of $39.2 million over two years. That total includes the $3.4 million the county will lose if the General Assembly agrees with Gov. Bob McDonnell that the update of the funding distribution formula should change immediately instead of being frozen for a year.  It does not reflect the $42 million shortfall that Chesterfield already is projecting in its school budget, based on reduced state funding in the budget introduced by then-Gov. Tim Kaine, falling local property tax revenue, and increased costs for teacher retirement and health benefits, among other things.

The totals are similarly ugly for other localities in the region: an additional $14 million cut to Henrico schools for a two-year total of $29.7 million; an additional $7.3 million in Richmond ()which was hit particularly bad by the formula update) for a total of $26.7 million; and an additional $5 million in Hanover for a total of $10.9 million.

Here’s something else we didn’t have room to explain in our print story today. The updating of the funding formula, or Local Composite Index, will cost the state an additional $29 million, which McDonnell plans to get from a variety of sources. While Kaine’s proposal to freeze the update for a year was good news to most school divisions, especially in Hampton Roads and the Richmond area, it was too much for Fairfax and other big Northern Virginia localities that were going to benefit from the formula for a change because it showed their loss of wealth in property values in the recession. The VEA estimates show what a big difference that makes. Fairfax would get an extra $61.8 million, so it would still stand to receive a net increase in state funds of more than $34 million in the first year of the budget even after the potential cuts by McDonnell and the legislature. Same thing in Loudoun, which would receive an additional $34.5 million under the formula for a net gain of $22.7 million after the cuts. It’s a little different in the second year, with VEA estimating a loss of $31.6 million for Fairfax and $14.5 million for Loudoun.

On the other end of the spectrum, Virginia Beach (McDonnell’s old constituency)  would get the worst of it: a total estimated loss of almost $57 million in the biennium, including almost $15 million in the first year because of the governor’s decision to “undo the freeze.” It’s no surprise that Hampton Roads legislators have been far less docile than many Richmond-area representatives in accepting the governor’s decision.

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