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

DATE: TUESDAY, April 9, 1991                   TAG: 9104090452
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN 
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

NO TAX HIKE CALLED FOR IN BEDFORD

Major-league dieting might be a more apt description of what the Bedford County supervisors did to trim their 1991-92 budget the county's 1991-92 budget.

By the time they went home Monday night, the supervisors had trimmed more than $1.9 million in proposed expenditures to come up with a balanced $53.9 million budget that includes no real estate tax rate increase.

The budget, approved unanimously Monday night, includes about $500,000 more than the county spent this year.

It includes $35,882,017 for spending on the schools, the largest element of the county's budget. That's slightly less than the school system will spend this year, according to school budget estimates.

Of that allocation, $11,065,030 will come from local tax revenues - about $100,000 less than the funding provided to the schools this year.

When they received a first draft of the budget in February, the supervisors were looking at a plan that proposed spending about $2 million more next year than the county expected to receive in revenues.

That's when they started chopping spending.

Some of the larger cuts included:

$700,000 for a proposed salary increase for school employees.

$300,000 they planned to set aside for a new county landfill, which will cost $3.6 million by the time it opens in 1993.

$200,000 for an enhanced 911 telephone system that would allow dispatchers to automatically pinpoint where an emergency call was coming from.

$100,000 from funds being saved to pay for the county's property reassessment in 1995. That project will cost about $500,000.

$90,000 for equipment in the county's new administration building.

$80,000 for an animal shelter.

$60,000 for a new roof at the health department.

$65,000 for library requests.

Supervisor T.D. Thornton went along with the decision to cut spending rather than to raise taxes, but cautioned his fellow members.

"What we are doing is postponing what we're going to have to do next year," Thornton said. "We are postponing about a million or so dollars [in expenditures.]"

Items like the landfill, 911 and reassessment can be put off, Thornton said, but they can't be dropped altogether.

Next year, he said, "I expect we had better be getting ready for an eight- or 10-cent tax raise."

The supervisors had advertised a real estate tax increase of 6 cents per $100 assessed valuation.

At a public hearing on the issue last month, only one person asked to speak to the issue of a tax increase.

Despite that, supervisors Chairman A.A. "Gus" Saarnijoki said the "tenor of the board" seemed to be to leave alone the 62-cent tax rate per $100 assessed value.

Four of the seven board members face re-election in November.

As it stands, Bedford County's real estate tax rate falls about in the middle of rate levels in its area, based on 1990-91 figures.

Of the nine localities tht touch the county, four - including Franklin County - have lower rates. Five - Roanoke County and Lynchburg included - are higher.