Editor, Gazette-Journal:

At Monday night’s public hearing on the proposed 2017-18 Mathews County budget, teachers and parents made a series of emotional pleas for restoring the school district’s original proposed budget amount from the county.

There is no doubt of their sincerity, but their facts were less solid. They all ignored chairman Jack White’s opening statement that the school board and the school administration decide how the school budget is used, not the board of supervisors.

One teacher cited 2005 budget numbers and applied a cost-of-living adjustment to her statistics, but she overlooked one detail: the enrollment in 2005 was 1,255 and the 2016 enrollment has dropped to 1,083. The current school budget breaks down to $12,656 per child. 

The school administration’s proposed $14.3 million budget for 2017-18 would have increased the amount per child to $13,204, assuming the current number of students held steady. That’s unlikely, seeing ...