ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996 TAG: 9604250049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
Franklin County Administrator Macon Sammons and his wife own a home in Roanoke County, and Sammons' daughter attends Salem city schools.
Those two facts have made Sammons the target of criticism from a group of people who question his commitment to Franklin County and its school system.
Sammons owns a condominium on the Franklin County side of Smith Mountain Lake that he considers his residence. He said Wednesday that his allegiance to Franklin shouldn't be questioned.
It's no coincidence that the criticism has popped up recently: The Board of Supervisors is nearing the approval of next year's county budget, and it's not likely that the school system's total request will be funded.
The supervisors are set to approve the budget today.
County residents - mostly parents and teachers - packed the Benjamin Franklin Middle School Auditorium on April 16. All but one of 27 speakers asked the board to fund the School Board's full request, which includes $1.7 million in new local money.
With a majority of the supervisors pledging no tax increases this year, Sammons and his staff recommended several weeks ago that the school system receive $1.06 million in new funds.
Nelson Amos was one of those who spoke in support of the school budget. One of the reasons Amos was compelled to speak was Sammons' situation, he said.
Amos says he doesn't think it's right that he pays all his local taxes in Franklin County and that Sammons - who makes about $80,000 in salary and benefits as the county's administrator - doesn't.
John Bono, a teacher and president of the county's Education Association, said talk about Sammons has cropped up the past few years at budget time.
"I can certainly understand how some of these people feel," he said.
Lois English, a retired county school teacher and a former member of the Board of Supervisors, worked with Sammons for three years before she lost a re-election bid last year.
English said it bothered her - and a lot of people she's talked to - that Sammons' family hasn't moved to Franklin County and that his daughter attends school in Salem.
"If they weren't going to move to Franklin County, then maybe he shouldn't have taken the job in the first place," she said.
English, who was a member of the board when Sammons was hired in 1993, said she understood that he hoped to move his family to Franklin County as soon as possible after he was hired.
Sammons said he never promised that his family would come to Franklin. "I mean, I can't force my wife to move."
Sammons said his wife and daughter lived in their Roanoke County home for two years - from 1991-93 - while he was county administrator in Alleghany County.
Supervisors Chairman Wayne Angell says Sammons is an active member of the Franklin County community. Angell says he has no doubts about Sammons' loyalty to the county.
"He just tried to sell me a ticket to a county function just a few minutes ago," Angell said Wednesday afternoon.
Sammons says he splits his time between the condominium at the lake and the home in Roanoke County, but he considers his Franklin County address his residence and gets most of his mail there.
Sammons is a member of the Smith Mountain Lake Lions Club and the Rocky Mount Rotary Club, and he attends church in Franklin County.
Amos said there's more than civic duty involved: There are band uniforms.
One of the items that stands to be cut from the school budget is new outfits for the high school band.
The ones band members wear were bought in 1979.
The county's band boosters have raised about $20,000 and need the county to chip in a matching sum.
The way Amos figures it, Franklin County is losing the $1,500 Sammons pays in Roanoke County real estate taxes, plus $3,000 in state education money and $250 in federal education money Franklin would get if his daughter went to school there.
"That's a fourth of what we need for the band uniforms," he said.
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