THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9501010092
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
A lot of big numbers are floating around the Eastern Shore's Northampton County these days. Nearly all of them are controversial, and some may just be wrong.
The state plans to build a $76 million maximum security prison outside Cape Charles, with an $18 million yearly operating budget. About $13 million of that will be salaries, say county officials.
As that money trickles from hand to hand, they say, the impact of those salaries will be multiplied four times over.
Ted Reynolds thinks some of those figures are suspicious. He's got an economic impact model that predicts a much smaller infusion of cash into local pockets - and a jump in county taxes.
Reynolds wants Northampton to do its own economic impact assessment to see whose numbers - his, or those from the Department of Corrections - are correct.
``Reasonable men can disagree,'' he said. ``But in some way you have to come down to a number you can believe. The county shouldn't accept my model. They should do one of their own. But it should be done professionally, and soon.''
Reynolds, 68, retired to a 112-acre horse farm near the head of Plantation Creek after a career in corporate finance and administration. He wanted to enjoy the water, his family, and the low-key Eastern Shore life. Involvement in local politics wasn't on Reynolds' agenda.
Then the state announced plans for a 1,267-inmate prison near Cape Charles and Cheriton. Reynolds was shocked. The site was far too close to the all-black neighborhood of Fairview, he said, and too close to Cheriton.
``I was appalled at the prevalent attitude of the people I talked to,'' said Reynolds. ``They would shrug their shoulders and say, `It's a done deal; the state does what it wants to do.' But I don't believe that.''
So Reynolds, and other members of Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore, started collecting information. Then they plugged the researched numbers into a hand-calculated impact model.
Data from the Virginia Employment Commission show that the prison salaries will total $8.5 million annually - $6.3 million after tax deductions. And the U.S. Justice Department uses a trickle-down multiplier of between 1.5 and 1.97 to predict the economic impacts of prisons.
By Reynolds' calculations, the prison will bring in about $328,020 in new taxes. But new services for the prison and its employees will cost about $777,823. That would require tax increases of 6.2 percent, said Reynolds, to raise the difference - $449,803.
According to his calculations, businesses in Accomack and Northampton counties together will net $3.7 million a year in additional income.
But what Reynolds fears most is the specter of prison expansion.
``They buy their way in with front-end inducements,'' Reynolds said of the Department of Corrections. ``The real trouble starts when they come in with the second or third facility.''
Virginia Tech has a computerized model for predicting the impacts of a wide range of economic development projects, said Reynolds. And they will share it with county governments. He hopes Northampton will get the model and use it.
``I'm not saying we have the absolute right numbers,'' Reynolds said of his prison-impact projections. ``But it can be done better than it has been done.'' ILLUSTRATION: Map
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