ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220022
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
To balance its next budget, Montgomery County will have to take drastic measures. And someone's going to feel the pinch: either taxpayers in their wallets or School Board members in their improvement plans.
The options include either raising the real-estate tax rate 19 cents - a phenomenally large figure in a county where the last tax increase was 2 1/2 cents - or slashing the School Board's requested 12 percent increase in education spending.
A 19-cent tax-rate increase would mean property owners would see their tax bills skyrocket by nearly 30 percent in one year. The annual tax bill on a home assessed at $100,000 would climb from $690 to $880.
The county Board of Supervisors will grapple with that dilemma over the next month before setting tax rates in early April for the budget year that begins July 1.
Tuesday, County Administrator Betty Thomas kicked off the review with her annual budget message and outline of an $18.5 million "maintenance budget."
Thomas said her plan maintains "base budgets" for all county departments, while suggesting just minor new-spending initiatives for 5 percent county employee pay raises, a computer upgrade, radios for the Sheriff's Office and others. Thomas also recommends 10 percent pay raises for the supervisors themselves, the first in six years.
As in past years, Thomas and her staff made no recommendation on the School Board's budget, which totals $53.3 million, a $5.8 million spending increase. School Board members tie the large increase to a long-range school-improvement plan and a need to reward teachers and staff with 7 percent raises, after just a 2 percent increase this year. School Board members also are seeking to double their salaries, which would be their first increase in 11 years.
While the total county budget hovers in the $70 million range, the Board of Supervisors can only directly influence about $31 million of that through local taxes, the vast majority ($24.3 million) via real-estate taxes. To balance the proposed budgets, the county needs to either raise taxes by $4.2 million or cut that amount from spending requests.
This spring will mark the first time a partially elected School Board tries to use public opinion to leverage a tax increase from the fully elected Board of Supervisors. Already School Board member Jim Klagge has published a paid advertisement - from leftover campaign funds - that includes the supervisors' phone numbers because, "The supervisors need to hear from people who are willing to pay higher taxes for education."
County Finance Director Carol Edmonds tried to give the supervisors the "big picture" on the budget Tuesday. To put the size of the school budget increase in perspective, she prepared a chart of ways the board could pay for the entire school request without raising taxes. The hypotheticals include eliminating all funding for the regional library, cutting capital improvements in half and eliminating 11 county departments such as parks and recreation, planning and economic development. "If you fully fund the schools' request, you will have to make some very hard decisions to make up $4.2 million," she said.
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