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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 21, 1993                   TAG: 9304210151
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium

SUPERVISORS MAY LET DEPARTMENT HEADS MAKE CUTS

The board continued to plan generally level funding for 1993-94 at its budget workshop Monday night.

It will add $400,000 to the school budget, but not the $500,000 that the school system got this year for capital projects and hoped to increase next year.

The School Board had delayed budget planning April 15, waiting to see if that $400,000 was going to be earmarked for capital expenses or for some other part of the school budget.

But the supervisors now seem inclined to let the School Board make that decision.

"With the school budget, that's all you can do is give them a dollar amount," said Supervisor Bruce Fariss.

Fariss suggested the same procedure for all county agencies and departments, telling each how much it would get and letting department and agency heads decide where to spend it.

Some supervisors looked sympathetically at parts of the budget they thought needed more money next year, but Chairman Jerry White reminded them that "each one of these things comes with a price tag. . . . If we start doing add-backs, it's hard to find a stopping point."

The supervisors also worried about maintaining various properties that the county has ended up with, such as the Pulaski Theater building and perhaps the Jefferson Elementary School building when it closes at the end of the current school year.

They considered ways of getting the buildings into private hands and back on the tax rolls, even if it takes selling some of them at public auction.

Even the amount budgeted each year for fire and rescue squad equipment upgrades came under scrutiny. "Yes, they're volunteers, I understand that," Fariss said, "but there's been a lot of money put into fire and rescue by the county."

The supervisors will decide May 3 on the budget they will advertise. A public hearing will be held on it May 17, with adoption scheduled for May 24.