Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 9, 1990                   TAG: 9006090403
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE SHENANDOAH BUREAU
DATELINE: LEXINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

LEXINGTON SHIFTS BURDEN OF TAX RATES

Motor vehicles, boats, trailers and airplanes now will be taxed at a rate of $4.25 per $100 valuation, City Manager Joe King said Friday. The present rate is $5.50.

The reduction was made possible mostly by a real-estate reassessment, King said. He described it as "shifting the burden."

The real estate tax is 90 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.

Council agreed that members of the Lexington Lifesaving Crew will pay no tax on the first $4,076 of valuation of the vehicle they use for emergency response.

The personal-property tax has been in the news recently because the city plans to more aggressively tax the cars of students at Washington and Lee University.

W&L students are known locally for driving expensive cars - a reputation many insist is mostly myth.

The budget, approved late Thursday, also includes two large capital expenditures - $1 million for the planned Lexington-Rockbridge County consolidated high school and $100,000 for a joint city-county courthouse.

The courthouse, which will house the General District and Juvenile and Domestic Relations courts for both the city and county, will be located in the former Leggett Department Store on Main Street, King said.