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Volume 39, Number 28
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King George
Wednesday, July 8, 2015 50 Cents
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School budget reflects Oh say can you see... the bombs bursting in air higher enrollment Phyllis Cook The King George Board of Supervisors amended the 201415 school board budget to reflect increased revenue of $115,343 and an additional $22,000 in federal grant funds. The supervisors took the action at their June 30 meeting. The higher state revenue is due higher basic aid for more students than had been anticipated in the budget. The school board’s 2014-15 budget was based on state aid for an estimated average daily membership of 4,189 students. School Superintendent Rob Benson informed school board members in April about the expected higher average daily membership, commonly referred to as ADM, saying it would likely be 4,236. The 2014-15 year ended on June 30. There is a 60-day accrual period for payments to be made after the June 30 date. The King George School Board had approved its own budget amendment on June 22, and requested the county board to do likewise so the money can be appropriated. The additional state funding was approved to go into the Administration, Attendance & Health category. Benson previously told The Journal the money would go toward payouts
to retirees who left at the end of the school/fiscal year. He reiterated that on June 22. To encourage retirement this past year, the School Board approved the retirement incentive program on March 9. The retirement incentive program provided eligible employees with a one-time lump-sum payment of 30 percent of their contracted salary at the time of retirement. Its purpose was to reduce the overall cost of salaries by replacing some senior, higher-paid employees, with less-experienced ones at lower pay rates. To participate, full-time employees aged 50 and above, with 10 or more years of experience in the King George division, had to retire in the Virginia Retirement System this past spring. The payout amount had been estimated to come to about $210,000 as part of a one-time retirement incentive program for the fiscal year just ended. Using the surplus funding in this manner by the division also frees up that amount of funding budgeted for 2015-16, which began on July 1. The 2015-16 School Board budget is based on an average daily membership of 4,240 on which state revenue is based, which could be close to the target, unless the division continues its growth trend.
Photo by Linda Farneth
Fireworks burst over the Colonial Beach Municipal Pier on Saturday in salute to America’s 239th birthday. The show capped a weekend of regional celebrations of freedom, faith and independence.
Goodman convicted in KG slaying Richard Leggitt A Maryland man was convicted Thursday in King George County Circuit Court for participating in a brutal 2014 robbery and slaying. Judge Patricia Kelly ordered a presentence investigation for Anthony Goodman and scheduled his sentencing for Oct. 1.
Goodman, 30, of Upper Marlboro, MD, entered a guilty plea with no agreement as to his sentence in connection with the Aug. 29, 2014 slaying of 20-year-old Ronelle Johnson of King George and the wounding of Johnson’s cousin, Gregory Gaines, 20, also of King George. “The King George Sheriff ’s Office
spent an unbelievable amount of time and resources in solving this crime. It was that hard work that enabled the Commonwealth to bring this case to a resolution,” said King George Commonwealth’s Attorney Keri Gusmann. In addition to Goodman, Michael See slaying, page 8
Utility rate increase effective immediately Phyllis Cook The King George Service Authority voted to raise rates and fees by 8 percent at last week’s meeting. Connection fees will not change. The new rates and fees increase the minimum residential bill for customers with both water and
sewer service using up to 5,000 gallons per two-month billing period by $9.48, from $118.20 to $127.68, including fixed fees. That’s an increase of less than $5 per month for those with minimum bills. The new rates and fees increase the county’s “average” residential bill for both water and sewer service
based on usage of 9,000 gallons per two-month billing period, by $14.03, from $175.01 to $189.04, including debt-service fees. That’s an increase of about $7 per month for customers using 9,000 gallons per billing period. The vote was 3-1, with supervisor See utilities, page 8
Fundraiser planned to save historic Belle Grove outbuildings George Whitehurst
Photo by George Whitehurst
Time and the elements have taken a toll on Belle Grove’s colonial-era summer kitchen and slave quarters.
As America wraps up its celebration of Independence Day, Michelle Darnell is on a mission. Darnell, who co-owns the Belle Grove Bed and Breakfast with her husband, Brett, is striving to save three of the 18th century outbuildings at the the former plantation, birthplace of President James Madison. Time and the elements have battered the buildings, which date from between 1720-50. Indeed, two of them are now slipping off their foundations and will collapse unless preservation and restoration take place. “Every day we’re losing pieces of our history,” Michelle Darnell said. “Those building are patchworks of American history. Once we lose those buildings, we can no longer tell those stories.” And what stories those building
can tell. Built during America’s colonial era, they offer a fascinating glimpse of life on the plantation at the time of James Madison’s birth. The largest of the buildings is a simple two-room structure that served as a summer kitchen and a slave quarters. Despite its conversion into a bath house during the 1930s, the primitive cabin still boasts its original kitchen mantlepiece and ironwork in the chimney. A second, smaller structure served as as a meat smokehouse. A third allbrick building may have functioned as an ice house. After opening the bed and breakfast at Belle Grove, Darnell asked a staffer from Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources to come inspect the crumbling outbuildings. “The first thing she said was, ‘Oh my God, Michelle. You don’t understand what you’ve got here because these [types of] buildings
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just don’t exist anymore,’” Darnell said with a laugh. The two wooden buildings bear the heaviest scars inflicted by the passage of time. Boards are cracked, and in some cases missing, while the foundations have grown unstable. “They’re 294 years old,” Darnell said. “The bases of the buildings are hand-hewn bricks with very old mortar. As time passes and the mortar crumbles , the bricks fall away and the building starts to slide.” She has already lined up an Amish craftsman from Maryland to begin the preservation and repair work once the money is raised. Using See BELLE GROVE, page 8