Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 21, 1991 TAG: 9104220274
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Both budgets would maintain current services and avoid layoffs, without raising taxes. (A new 5-percent admissions tax in the county will be more than offset by a cut in the real-estate tax rate from $1.15 to $1.13 per $100 in assessed value.) The accomplishment comes with a cost: no pay increases for employees, and a deferral of other expenses and new programs.
That's not good; for now, though, it'll have to do. Deferring the deferrable is an appropriate way to get through a temporary patch of trouble. Asking all employees to share in some sacrifice, going without raises, is better than arbitrary layoff lotteries in which a few lose everything.
As Councilman David Bowers noted about the city's budget, such frugality "may not be pleasant, but . . . it is the right [approach] at this time."
But the stress should be on "at this time." The greater - and self-destructive - sacrifice would be to let needs go unmet indefinitely, to let the quality of public education decline, to assume that an effective work force can be maintained indefinitely if pay is not competitive.
In the city, Herbert's prediction of an economic upturn within a few months may prove wrong. But he is wise to base his budget on that assumption, to refrain from undermining valuable municipal services to the point that their restoration would become overly expensive.
Conversely, some Roanoke County supervisors' fear that the recession will continue into 1992-93 may prove correct. But the supervisors were unwise to instruct Hodge to freeze another $400,000 on the basis of that fear.
Hodge's budget was in balance for 1991-92, even incorporating the reduction in the real-estate tax rate. That reduction looked foolhardy when passed; it looks even more so today.
To defer normal expenses - whether big-ticket items such as countywide pay raises, or small items such as routine vehicle replacement (as the supervisors told Hodge to do) - is to push the burden onto future taxpayers. It is the local-government equivalent of a federal borrow-and-spend fiscal policy. As a temporary expedient, it is defensible; to do so while cutting tax rates is irresponsible.
But the "no new tax" mantra that has captured so many federal and state politicians has entranced many local officials as well. There are worse things than higher taxes, one of which is trying to delude the public into thinking there aren't. Do politicians nowadays even remember how to defend public services, to explain the need for public support of such services?
Yes, cutbacks in state aid, not declines in projected local revenues, are the main reason that city and county budgets are so tight. And yes, the governor and General Assembly lacked the gumption to raise taxes to restore such aid to previous levels.
None of that absolves local officials of their own duty to ensure that the proper level of public investment is being made in the future of their own communities. If that means raising local taxes, so be it.
Pointing fingers at the state may have value as part of a case for local tax increases that may well have to come. But the state cutbacks are a reason for local politicians to start preparing that case, not an excuse to flee from it.
by CNB