ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 9, 1996 TAG: 9604090100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
Unseasonably cold weather and rain Monday night didn't stop several Bedford County taxpayers from voicing their bitter opposition to an advertised 30 percent increase in the county's real estate tax for next fiscal year.
Many who spoke at a public hearing about the proposed 1996-97 budget told the Board of Supervisors that county spending is out of control and the board is doing too much to encourage residential growth and not enough to attract new jobs and industries.
Earlier this month, the Board advertised a 13-cent increase in county real estate taxes - from 44 cents to 57 cents per $100 of assessed value. Even though the board has said it intends to substantially lower that figure in the tax rate - and in fact, has, by three more cents - some of the speakers seemed skeptical.
Richard Ruff, a fertilizer dealer and cattle farmer, said farming profits are going down, and "it's a bad time to be raising taxes.
"This county is running like a freight train without an engine," Ruff said. "And it's going to take several more elections, but this train is going to stop."
Speakers said that county schools were being built wastefully and the board was not refinancing high-interest construction loans as it should. They also expressed concern over a recent report in which an auditor recommended that the county forgive a 10-year-old $60,000 debt owed by the county Public Service Authority. The Board hasn't taken action on that recommendation.
This year's draft budget initially called for the largest increase in recent memory - $82.9 million in expenditures for the 1996-97 fiscal year, almost $11 million more than fiscal 1995-96 expenditures. The draft budget now stands at about $78 million - $1.4 million more than last year's.
Many of the cuts came from jails - Bedford has decided to rejoin a regional jail system, which saved the county more than $1 million in planning costs for building a new jail - and the school system, which shaved nearly $2 million off their request for local funds for the coming school year.
However, former Supervisor John Sublett complained that returning to the regional jail "ain't nothing but a part of annexation. Once Lynchburg gets us in the regional jail, annexation, here we come." Sublett also complained that as a taxpayer, he had to pay $10 for a copy of the county budget, but the local media received free copies.
Citing financial audits from recent years, Sublett pointed out that many county offices routinely spend more than the money budgeted to them by the Board of Supervisors.
Expressing a similar thought, Alfred J. Wheeler said, "These overruns on county budgets, I've had to live under a budget all my life ... and I just don't quite understand it."
Still, Board of Supervisors Chairman Tony Ware told the crowd, "I'm sure that before the board finishes with this budget, it'll be wrestled with quite strongly."
LENGTH: Medium: 58 linesby CNB