ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 16, 1997 TAG: 9704160033
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER THE ROANOKE TIMES
Pulaski County is considering a budget that would boost local revenue for schools by 17 percent.
Pulaski County officials are looking at a proposed budget that would add $1.3 million in local funding to the county school system in 1997-98.
Although it would be a 17 percent increase over local funding this year, it is $1 million less than the county School Board requested as the minimum to meet county educational needs. But school officials said they knew, even as they made their request, that the county could not afford it.
It would have taken a 60-cent increase in the county's personal property tax rate to fund the schools request.
County Administrator Joe Morgan outlined the proposed budget at a work session Monday night. The supervisors will hold another work session at 7 p.m. next Monday to react to it.
Although education is always the biggest local expense, the school system was not alone in getting less than requested. The administrative staff reduced total requests by other county offices by $245,000, which would hold operating expense increases to 6 percent.
The proposed budget would not raise taxes, thanks partly to a 11.6 percent jump in local revenue growth, totaling $1.7 million more than for the current fiscal year. "A million dollars of our new revenue came from industry adding more equipment, and I expect we'll see a lot more next year," Morgan said.
A tax increase for a specific purpose has not been ruled out, however.
If the supervisors should decide to provide even more additional local revenue for schools, Morgan said, the logical place to get that money would be to increase the $1.50 rate on personal property.
This could be offset by decreasing the fee for motor vehicle decals from $20 to $5, he said.
School officials will ask for money later for a school construction and renovation program. A good match for that, Morgan suggested, would be increasing the real estate tax levy after the latest reassessment is complete.
The supervisors will need to consider long-term financing of capital needs such as school buildings and general government needs over the next two decades, Morgan said. Revenues will have to increase or operating expenses be reduced if future capital outlay needs are funded.
New recreation and economic development needs could be covered by an increase in the machinery and tools tax, or merchants' capital tax, or both. Such needs, including the establishment of the proposed Randolph Park on land donated to the county, could also be funded by extending the Business, Professional Occupations License tax to service, contracting, financing and professional businesses in the county.
Unlike towns, the county does not now impose a BPOL tax. Noting the anticipated decrease in solid waste disposal costs with the proposed expansion of the New River Resource Authority which handles that, Morgan said businesses could divert some of those savings to recreation and economic development needs through the BPOL.
Speeding up the work on new addresses for the county's 911 emergency system might be funded by increasing the 911 phone tax and adding a cellular phone tax.
These are among the matters on which the supervisors must make decisions before the 997-98 county budget is made final and advertised for a public hearing before adoption.
The state requires that the county reassess its real estate in 1998. Morgan and the staff recommended that any adjustment in the real estate tax be postponed until the results of that reassessment are known.
A 4 percent general salary increase is proposed for Board of Supervisors employees. That is the same percentage by which the School Board hopes to raise its employee wages. The proposed budget also includes 4 percent salary adjustments effective last December for constitutional officers' employees as approved by the General Assembly.
Morgan also suggested that the board consider delaying the penalty on unpaid personal property taxes until the spring deadline for buying county vehicle decals. Before decals are sold, county officials check to make sure the buyer has paid his or her personal property taxes.
The change would allow people to pay their personal property taxes in the spring, perhaps with assistance from federal or state tax refunds, instead of close to Christmas when people tend to spend more money shopping.
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