County supervisors, with last year's difficult budget process in mind, have started earlier on the new budget, yet all appear to expect even more difficult budget choices this year.
That's because more students keep showing up to attend Loudoun schools each year regardless of economic conditions.
Fairfax schools reportedly have begun to show some easing in school attendance, but not so in Loudoun where 59,490 students were counted at the start of school this year, compared to 57,009 last year.
Yet, taxpayers are still going through a period of lower home values, job losses and pinched family budgets.
A revitalized economy is not expected to show up before the county must set a tax rate for fiscal 2011.
The push and pull was already evident last week between those defending funding for schools and taxpayers bitter about a budget in which schools traditionally get 70 percent of the tax dollar.
At a meeting of homeowner association board members in Sugarland Run, residents urged that Supervisor Susan Buckley vote to cut the school budget this go-round in order to keep real estate taxes down.
"We don't need to spend that much on schools," said one man, who was quickly joined by another during the comment period. But these comments were quickly rebutted by younger residents who had children in public schools.

AT LAST THURSDAY'S joint meeting of supervisors and School Board members, Susan Sullivan, president of the Loudoun Education Association, with more than 3,300 member school teachers and other school employees, said: "A flat budget for the upcoming year endangers the outstanding quality of Loudoun's schools," adding that such a budget "puts jobs on the line even as LCPS prepares to welcome and educate more than 3,000 new students."
"Directing the creation of a school budget with a 5 percent reduction from current funding levels surely will cut deeply into our school programs, our employee base and directly impact our students," Sullivan said.
At the same time, supervisors are concerned about overcrowding in Loudoun Schools.
With Stone Bridge High School the county's most severely crowded school, Broad Run Supervisor Lori Waters in recent weeks has led an effort to secure early construction of a new high school in Ashburn on the north side of the Greenway. And to jump start the construction, she has pushed to build the new school on a 100-acre site that the county already owns. The site, along the south side of Farmwell Road, however has been designated in county planning for a new Monroe VoTech facility and commercial construction. The site may be large enough for the two schools if commercial uses are passed up.

MEANWHILE, Supervisors Chairman Scott York reported that if this year's budget is expanded to serve the additional number of students, additional debt service payments for capital construction, and factor in the drop in real-estate values and expected reductions in state funds to the county, "the tax rate would need to be increased from [the current] $1.245 to $1.458." He added that the result would be a $156.8 million shortfall in the new budget.
He said the board has instructed its budget office to produce:
* A budget that maintains funding at current fiscal 2010 levels, which would equate to a tax rate on homeowners of $1.30 per $100 of assessed value because home values are down from last year; and
* A budget that increases funding levels by 5 percent over the FY10 budget, which would equate to a tax rate of $1.37.
In either case, supervisors would need to make up the $156.8 million shortfall in the new budget.
This could be done, York said, by:
* raising the tax rate to $1.458, which would increase the average tax bill by about 10 percent;
* cutting the budget by the $156.8 million, or
* a combination of budget cuts and tax rate increases.
He urged residents to let supervisors know what they need in the new budget, from listing programs most urgent to suggesting a most optimal tax rate.
Residents my e-mail all supervisors at bos@loudoun.gov; write to Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, 1 Harrison St., SE, Fifth Floor, P.O. Box 7000, Mailstop #01, Leesburg, VA 20177-7000, or call the "comment line" at 703-777-0115. Residents may also sign up to speak at public hearings held on the Monday following the first Tuesday of each month, starting at 6:30 p.m. Additional public hearings will be announced. For more information, visit www.loudoun.gov.