ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 5, 1996 TAG: 9603050030
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
After five detailed review sessions, Montgomery County's 1996-97 budget remains $4.2 million out of balance.
No clear consensus on closing that gap has emerged among members of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, which must set county tax rates by next month.
The supervisors have agreed to no significant cuts as they've reviewed and asked questions about major county budgets ranging from the Sheriff's Office to social services.
Instead, late Friday night, the board kicked around how much of a tax increase members would support, if any. The supervisors will meet again at 7 p.m. Sunday to try to come up with a tax rate to advertise one week before the March 21 public hearing in Riner.
Surprisingly, Ira Long and Henry Jablonski, two of the board's fiscal conservatives, said Friday they would support up to a 4-cent real-estate tax increase, at least for advertising purposes. And Supervisor Joe Stewart - an adamant foe of any tax increase - supported advertising a 7-cent increase, if only to "wake some people up" and get them to come out. The current rate is 69 cents per $100 of assessed value.
Jablonski recalled years when the board advertised a huge tax increase, with no intention of actually imposing it, only to draw hundreds to a heated public hearing. "I've been through advertising these numbers for the sake of advertising," he said. "I just don't like doing things that way."
For now, it would take a 19-cent real-estate tax increase to balance the spending plan for the budget year beginning July 1. The primary factor driving that is the School Board's $53.8 million spending request, a jump of 12 percent, or $5.8 million over the current year.
The supervisors questioned school officials for nearly two hours about their budget on Wednesday, but came to no conclusions.
In other budget highlights thus far:
* A proposal to increase salaries for Board of Supervisors members by 10 percent appears doomed. No members supported it at a Feb. 25 work session. It would cost $5,380.
* A 5 percent pay-raise package for county employees escaped intact Friday night after board review. "I think we do have some ground to make up," said Supervisor Nick Rush. Finance Director Carol Edmonds said in her 15 months of working for Montgomery County she'd lost three of her top four deputies, and the county salary scale played a role each time. The School Board budget requests a 7 percent employee pay raise.
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