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

DATE: THURSDAY, June 9, 1994                   TAG: 9406090045
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ray Reed
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SWITCHING STICKERS IS TOUGH WORK

Q: Regarding the sticky situation of auto decals and swapping them between vehicles to avoid paying $20 or $40, I think the larger issue is that people who do this can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars by not reporting that they own late-model luxury cars.

N.N.

A: That was true a few years ago. The new word is, cheating on personal property tax requires a lot of work in this cyberspace age.

Ducking the property tax means you'd have to also escape the computers of DMV and eyes of local police.

A few years ago the software in one agency couldn't exchange data with another agency. That problem is history.

Once a month, the morning begins in Wayne Compton's office with a list generated overnight by computer, showing cars that have been licensed by the DMV but not recorded on Roanoke County's tax rolls.

Compton, Roanoke County's commissioner of revenue, has an employee who bills $110,000 a year in taxes and penalties from this list - which was next to impossible for humans to compile on paper.

Look for this procedure to go into use this year in the city of Roanoke. Marsha Fielder, the city's recently elected commissioner of revenue, learned the process when she worked for her father, Compton, in Roanoke County.

The Roanoke office used to attempt this cross-checking from printouts. Fielder says its more efficient to let the computers do it all.

To avoid both DMV and local computers, a driver apparently would have to switch not only a decal but also the license plates to the vehicle of the day.

Enter the police - and Roanoke County just hired an officer for decal duty. If a routine license check on a 1994 chariot comes back showing the plate's registered to a 1980 clunker, blue lights will appear in somebody's rear-view mirror.

Before a motorist can pay off a ticket for not having a decal, he or she will first have to ante up the decal fee and personal property tax.|

Money stays put

Q: My husband and I just finished working as volunteers for Festival in Park. We handled beer sales, and he was curious about where the concessions' money went and what it was used for.|

|M.L.H. A: Most of the festival money stays in the community, except for the fees paid to traveling performers such as Marty Stuart and Three Dog Night.

Four graduating seniors and college freshmen who live within 100 miles of Roanoke receive four-year scholarships in visual or performing arts or related fields.

This is not a complete accounting by any means, but here are a few figures from the 1993 festival:

Just over $53,000 was the net from concession sales of beer, soft drinks, sparkling water, snow cones, cotton candy and popcorn.

Wendi Schultz, executive director, estimates the festival grosses $500,000 a year. Much of it is given by sponsors: the Crestar soccer tournament or Saturn bicycle race, for example. Other major fund sources are sales of concessions and the $3 buttons for admission to a few events.

The sponsors provide $150,000 to $200,000, Schultz said.

To that, add the work of 3,000 volunteers like yourselves.

One place festival money does not go is into profits. It's a nonprofit organization, and all the money raised goes back into the festival, Schultz said.

by CNB