ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 12, 1996 TAG: 9603130038
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
Montgomery County school officials will get only half of the spending increase they sought in the coming budget year - at most - and even that's far from a sure thing.
By a 5-2 vote late Sunday, the county Board of Supervisors agreed to advertise a 6-cent increase in the real-estate tax rate. Chairman Henry Jablonski and Supervisor Ira Long were the dissenters.
The board will publish the proposed tax rate of 75 cents per $100 of assessed value later this week in newspaper advertisements announcing the 7 p.m. March 21 public hearing at Auburn High School in Riner. The board will vote on the budget in early April.
Sunday's decision does not necessarily mean taxes will increase. Typically the Montgomery board advertises an increase to gauge public opinion. For perspective, the board has raised the real-estate tax rate - its major source of local money - only once since a 1991 election gave fiscal conservatives the balance of power.
Sunday's vote seals the fate of the county School Board's $53.3 million budget request.
That's because when the Board of Supervisors sets tax rates, by law it may use the advertised rate or a lower one, but may not increase it.
The supervisors' advertised tax increase will produce at most a 6.2 percent budget increase for schools, when the School Board had asked for 12 percent.
Therefore the School Board must trim at least $3 million out of its budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, and more if the Board of Supervisors adopts any rate lower than 75 cents.
A similar situation unfolded last year, when the School Board proposed a budget that would have required an 11-cent tax increase. The Board of Supervisors agreed to advertise only a 5-cent increase and ultimately declined to raise taxes at all in a year when four seats were up for election.
Sunday's vote prompted Supervisor Jim Moore to say, as he has in the past, that the board was balancing its budget on the backs of students. That brought polite rebukes from several colleagues. Jablonski called it a "politician's statement." One could just as easily say the board was balancing the budget on the backs of the elderly by proposing any tax increase, he suggested.
Supervisor Nick Rush challenged Moore and Mary Biggs, who favored advertising a 19-cent increase to fully fund the schools' request, to run for re-election advocating a 30 percent tax increase. Rush said the biggest so-called supporters of education are also its biggest detractors in Montgomery County. He thinks it's fine as is. "I think we have an excellent education system, excellent teachers," he said.
Long said the board has increased school funding from $18 million when he joined in 1983 to $50 million under the proposed budget. "I'm proud of what we've done for the schools," he said.
The advertised tax rate means the owner of a piece of property assessed at $100,000 would pay $750 a year in real-estate taxes, compared with $690 under the current, 69-cent rate. That's an increase of $60, or 8.7 percent. Property owners in Christiansburg and Blacksburg pay additional real-estate taxes to the town governments, though neither has proposed an increase so far.
The board left the personal property tax rate unchanged in the advertised budget at $2.45 per $100 of assessed value. But some members favor lowering it 5 cents, and making up the difference with a half-cent real-estate rate increase.
The supervisors made only one major and several minor changes to the nonschool budget proposed last month by County Administrator Betty Thomas. Sunday night, at Long's urging, they added $200,000 to buy more trash-collection sites. And at Supervisor Joe Gorman's request, the board added $20,000 to the library budget for computer equipment. Meanwhile, Thomas' proposal of a 10 percent pay raise for supervisors failed to win a single supporter despite its relatively puny price tag of $5,380.
The total county spending portion of the budget is $18.7 million. The combined budget proposal is $69.1 million.
Public hearing
The public hearing on Montgomery County's 1996-97 tax rates and budget will be held at 7 p.m. March 21 at Auburn High School in Riner.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: Montgomery County's real estate taxby CNBincreases in the '90s.