Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 19, 1992 TAG: 9203190143
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: RINER LENGTH: Short
The hearing will begin at 7:30 p.m. The budget is 7 percent higher than this year's. The supervisors are advertising a 2-cent increase in the county's real-estate tax rate to help pay for it.
A 2-cent increase in the real estate tax rate would mean that the owner of an $80,000 home would pay an additional $16 a year in taxes.
The sentiment on the board, however, has been to avoid any tax increase.
If taxes are not increased, the board will have to make cuts or find some other way to make up an expected $510,000 shortfall in revenue.
The budget contains money to provide 4.5 percent raises for all county employees, including school employees. But if the tax rate is not increased, those raises may have to be cut back. All but a few county salaries were frozen during the current year.
The portion of the proposed budget that would be local revenue is $26.5 million, a $1 million increase in local contributions over the current year. Most all of that local increase would go to the school budget.
The supervisors are proposing spending $41.3 million for the operation of the county's school's next year, of which $19.1 million would be county money.
The school portion of the budget is roughly $2 million more than this year, but $11 million less than the School Board had asked for.
by CNB