Schools plead with McDonnell to reconsider LCI decision

Eighty-seven school districts, including representatives from Gloucester and Mathews schools, signed onto a petition urging Gov. Bob McDonnell to reconsider his decision to unfreeze the Local Composite Index.

The Local Composite Index, or LCI, is a complex funding formula that the state employs to determine the ability of each Virginia city and county to pay for K-12 public education. It is recalculated every two years.

Gov. Tim Kaine, in his initial budget, had proposed freezing the LCI at its present level for an additional year. McDonnell’s Feb. 9 decision to adopt the new LCI this year will cost 93 school districts in the Commonwealth a combined $116.4 million in funding in the coming year, according to the Feb. 19 letter which was signed by Gloucester’s Superintendent of Schools Ben Kiser and Mathews County School Board chairman Jen Little, among others.

In contrast, Northern Virginia schools stand to benefit from the changes by $134.4 million, the letter stated.

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