ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170032
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
ROANOKE CITY Manager Bob Herbert's proposed 1996-97 municipal budget contains much that Roanokers can applaud - no new taxes, full funding of the School Board's basic budget, money to help implement a new rental-inspection program, improvements in trash collection.
But the lack of money in the proposed budget for the city's share in hiring a regional greenways coordinator is an omission that needs to be remedied.
At $152.5 million, the proposed budget would amount to a 4 percent increase over the current year's. Tax rates, however, would stay the same, with the additional revenue coming from growth of the city's tax base.
For example, the city's real-estate tax rate of $1.23 per $100 of assessed value - or $922.50 per year on a $75,000 home - would not change, but real-estate tax revenues are projected to rise by about 2 percent. This reflects new construction and improvements as well as purely market-based assessment increases.
The bulk of the money from growth-derived tax revenues - and also from cost reductions in some items, such as employee hospitalization insurance - is earmarked for employee pay increases.
Especially welcome is the proposed raise of 6 percent in the teacher salary scale. When combined with experience-related tier increases for which many teachers will be eligible, the average raise in teacher salaries would be 7 percent.
Principals' salaries would rise by an average of 6.1 percent. For other kinds of school and city employees, average pay increases would range from 3 to 5 percent.
Other new spending is limited, but the purposes are high-profile and worthy.
Money for two new building inspectors, for example, is essential if a program of regular inspections of some 4,700 inner-city rental units is to work well.
Money invested up front on automated trash-pickup trucks - $535,000 in 1996-97 for phase one - should lead in time both to savings in operating costs and a cleaner city.
Money would be set aside, too, for expansion of the schools' Pre-School Initiative Program and for funding of recommendations, not yet announced, of the city's Task Force on Teen Pregnancy.
No money, though, for greenways. This is a lamentable oversight at odds with the forward thinking in other parts of the budget. If the city has millions available to give city workers above-inflation raises for the third year in a row, surely $28,000 can be found to fund the city's share of a greenways coordinator.
True, the volunteer-led greenways effort is expected to get additional help beginning July 1, the result of member localities' decision to use part of the Virginia Department of Transportation's allocation to the Fifth District Planning Commission for greenways planning.
This, however, is for a half-time employee only - and one whose role cannot, under the terms of the allocation, go beyond planning.
By contrast, a coordinator could be full-time and could be an advocate for greenways. Moreover, the hiring of a coordinator, with each valley government paying its proportionate share, would be tangible evidence of local commitment to the greenways idea.
Impetus for a greenways system in the Roanoke Valley is too strong to be stopped even without a full-time coordinator to spearhead the effort.
But to delay even by a year the hiring of a coordinator is to risk foreclosing greenways opportunities, and to needlessly slow progress on a quality-of-life component in which the valley already lags.
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