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

DATE: SATURDAY, March 30, 1991                   TAG: 9103300169
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: M.J. DOUGHERTY CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: FLOYD                                LENGTH: Medium

SUPERVISORS EXAMINE NEW BUDGET

The new budget is a lean spending plan of almost $11.49 million - approximately $315,000 less than this year.

The budget, submitted by County Administrator Randy Arno Thursday night, maintains the existing tax rates - 67 cents per $100 assessed value for real estate and $1.82 for personal property.

It includes less money for schools and government administration. The only raises proposed are $1,000 for each of four full-time county employees making less than $15,000.

The proposal includes $2.35 million - about $36,000 less than this year - for general county operations, other than schools, welfare and other county services. It also has almost no margin for error - less than 0.2 percent of the budget, about $22,000, has been reserved for contingencies.

"I guess you'd call this an election-year contingency," said Supervisor Howard Dickerson. "It's almost nothing."

Arno's proposed budget reduces the School Board's request by $15,000, but still increases local spending by $75,000.

The proposed school budget of nearly $8.14 million is about $230,000 less than this year's spending.

"If I cut the school budget budget by $25,000, we'd later almost definitely have to appropriate more local money to the School Board," Arno said. "Cutting it by $15,000 leaves us an $11,000 cush."

Arno said the schools could save $25,000 by not increasing the system's share of the health insurance payments for school employees to 60 percent from the current 50 percent.

Several supervisors had objected to the proposed increase when the board presented its budget to them last week.

The only new revenue source in Arno's county budget is from a landfill user fee. The proposed charge of $25 a ton for industrial waste is expected to bring in $65,000 next fiscal year.

However, the budget does not address the expected costs of a new landfill to meet state regulations and closing the existing facility.

"I didn't include anything for the [new] landfill," Arno told the board. "One, it's two years away. Two, I'm not sure how we're going to do it."

Lynn Croy, a consultant from Draper Aden Associates of Blacksburg, told the supervisors Thursday the county would have to spend between $1.4 million and $2.5 million over the next three years for landfill construction.

She added that the county would have to come up with as little as $2,000, or as much as $363,000, next year for landfill improvements. The amount depends on whether the county purchases additional equipment and how much it has to pay for engineering and surveying.

The one major increase in the proposed budget is in welfare, expected to go up by over $100,000 to more than $556,000.

The Supervisors scheduled a budget work session for Friday at 9 a.m. at the Courthouse.