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

DATE: SUNDAY, March 5, 1995                   TAG: 9503060067
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

COUNCIL STARTS DAY WITH A BIG DISH OF BUDGET

A few snowflakes swirled, and the temperature was near freezing outside, but the mood was casual and cordial inside, a bit like a family's early morning gathering around the kitchen table, complete with ham biscuits, sweet rolls and fresh coffee.

``The weather's not real nice, so we don't have to worry about all the things we would have been doing today,'' joked Mayor Tom Starnes, sporting jeans and a Ducks Unlimited sweat shirt.

The annual planning session, held at the Radford Public Library, focused on money - getting it, saving it and spending it.

Councilman Bill Yerrick suggested a tax, possibly $5, on the estimated 7,740 kegs of beer sold annually in the college town. City Manager Bob Asbury recommended an ordinance to require the maximum allowable co-payment from city inmates on medical costs, including prescriptions.

Participants also looked favorably on imposing the city's utility and 911 taxes on cellular telephones.

``I don't know how that would be any different than the phone you have at home,'' said Asbury, in a sweater and looking more like Mr. Rogers than a typical municipal administrator.

A new consumer tax on cable TV probably won't come until the federal government lets telephone and other utilities provide video services, council members agreed. Asbury called it ``a revenue opportunity.''

There also was talk of jobbing out jail food service and city trash pickup to private companies, further improving tax and utility collections, and looking for more ways to cut spending through restructuring city government and operations.

Council members agreed the city's in fair financial shape, with revenues up 3 percent or so a year. But Councilwoman Polly Corn painted an uncertain fiscal future. Radford Community Hospital's move to Montgomery County could ravage business tax receipts by 20 or 30 percent when the medical profession follows, she suggested.

Of more immediate concern is the proposed 1995-96 budget, at $45 million already more than $2 million out of balance, mostly because of capital requests to alleviate a space crunch in the schools. Starnes, who agrees tax increases are not out of the question, said meeting the schools' request would mean an 80 percent real estate tax jump and was ``totally out of the question,'' in his opinion.

The city also is trying to find money for urgent projects, including $2 million for work at the city's water treatment plant and about $1 million for expanded court and office facilities at the Municipal Building.

A proposed $6 million to $7 million bond issue could raise the needed dollars but would raise taxes as well, Corn said. The city would need approximately $100,000 in new annual revenue to repay each $1 million borrowed.

School officials at the session stressed the city needs new classroom space by next fall to handle suddenly burgeoning enrollments in the lower grades. Work on an art and music classroom at McHarg Elementary starts this spring. But Superintendent Michael Wright said Belle Heth Elementary, where some classes meet in corridors, also needs one to free up other room.

Some council members said they would support letting the schools spend now the money they expect to have left over at year's end, June 30, to build the Belle Heth addition, estimated to cost approximately $100,000.

Wright also said he would explore borrowing from the Virginia Literary Fund for future school expansion and renovation projects at Dalton Intermediate and Radford High schools.