Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 16, 1995 TAG: 9503160051
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-9 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The signal-relay radio system is designed to improve coverage throughout the county. It became a top priority in the wake of county deputies' communication problems following the fatal shooting of a Christiansburg police officer last year.
The board agreed with County Administrator Betty Thomas, though, that if the Sheriff's Office wants to buy 20 new portable radios and battery chargers for its cruisers, it should use $15,500 already in its proposed budget. Sheriff Ken Phipps had sought $22,900.
The supervisors reached consensus Tuesday to pay for seven of the 10 spending initiatives put forward by Thomas. That amounts to $108,300 out of $696,800 in proposed new spending. The only project cut so far is $2,800 for a part-time substitute for the courthouse receptionist.
The two big-ticket items the board has yet to agree on are a 5 percent pay increase for county and Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library employees at $183,700 and a plan to consolidate rural trash collection into seven fenced-in sites around the county at $402,000.
The six other initiatives include:
$31,200 to pay half the cost of the Family Resource Team's home confinement program for teen-age offenders, as an alternative to placing them in the New River Valley Juvenile Detention Home. The state pays the other half.
$20,100 for a new four-wheel drive truck for animal control officers.
$16,000 for a computer specialist for the regional library, to help with the conversion to an automated checkout system.
$9,400 for the Shawsville Volunteer Rescue Squad to equip one ambulance with advanced life support equipment.
$6,000 to equip the Longshop-McCoy Volunteer Fire Department with 10 portable radios.
$600 for furniture for the probation office.
The larger question of how to balance the $75.8 million county spending plan, and where to set tax rates, remained open Tuesday. County Finance Director Carol Edmonds presented the board with several revenue options.
The county's biggest local revenue producer is the real estate tax. Last year's property reassessment - the first since 1991 - increased real estate values 6.5 percent. The tax rate, now at 72.5 cents per $100 of assessed value, will have to fall to 69 cents to keep the effective tax that landowners pay within 1 percent of the current level, as required by state law.
The Board of Supervisors then can move the rate back up, but will have to advertise such a change as a tax increase. Edmonds also gave the board an idea of how much revenue various tax increases would produce: a 71-cent rate would bring in another $1.2 million; going back to the 72.5-cent rate would produce $1.7 million; a 74-cent rate would raise $2.07 million.
To put that in perspective, the budget as it stood Tuesday was still $3.5 million out of balance.
by CNB