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Tax rate up 10¢ in Bath
By Mike Bollin ger • Staff Writer
WARM SPRINGS - Citing the tightest budget the county's seen in recent years, Bath officials agreed on a 10-cent hike in property taxes last week.
The Bath County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Wednesday, June 25 to set the real estate tax rate at 55 cents per $100 in property value, a 10-cent increase over the previous rate of 45 cents. Williamsville District supervisor Stuart Hall dissented.
The board had proposed a personal property tax rate of 45 cents, up from 20 cents, but voted instead to raise that rate to 35 cents. A proposed business license fee of $30 was not adopted, and a proposed motor vehicle fee of $7.50 will instead be $10.
After setting the levies, the board voted 4-1 to adopt a $20,137,728 budget for 2008-09, a $6.8 million reduction from the 2007-08 budget. Instead of making the appropriations yearly, supervisors decided to make them quarterly in an effort to better control spending. In making the motion, Hall said he felt quarterly appropriations would help the board "try to stop the waste of any of this money."
Valley Springs District supervisor Richard Byrd cast the lone "no" vote, disagreeing with the quarterly appropriation schedule.
Chairman Jon Trees of Warm Springs District said he would go along with quarterly appropriations, but said there would need to be some flexibility. He cited the example of a concern from the recreation department about a line item it has that needs to be spent in the spring.
Byrd said the board needed to be willing to work with county departments to make sure the quarterly appropriation process goes as smoothly as possible. "We will have problems if we are not prepared. I remember the last time we did it (quarterly appropriations), and it was like a rat race," he said.
"I think it will be important for county department heads to either learn this new system or delegate their best person to learn it," said Millboro District supervisor Carol Hardbarger.
Byrd had a specific request of school superintendent Dr. David Smith concerning the new appropriation schedule. "If we run out of money for heat for these schools, we need to see you down here," Byrd said.
Tax rate discussions
Hardbarger said she had heard citizens asking the board not to raise the tax rate by 10 cents and had some call her to say the rate should be raised and the schools given all they asked for. She said she believed the issue was basically what services county residents want and how much they are willing to pay for them. She said the county needs to look at the employee situation to make sure there is no overstaffing, but noted there are many federal and state requirements that must be met.
Referencing earlier discussion about increasing the occupancy tax from its current rate of 2 percent, Hall noted state law requires anything more than 2 percent be used to promote tourism and the county was hoping to see a change in that law. "This economy is coming down on people and people that I know are hurting. I feel for them," he said. "Gas and food prices are rising and older and younger people alike are having problems. We need to learn to live within our means - the means of the majority of the people in this county."
Hall said he believes an efficiency study of county employees is needed and he wants the county to look at a meals tax. "I will request a meals tax be put on the agenda so we can have a referendum on it," he said.
"Every agency in the county needs to pull together to help the taxpayers. I care about the people in the county," he continued. "The buck stops here with this board. I do hear you (citizens). I sympathize with each and every one of you. I don't think there have been harder times in Bath County than there are now."
Trees defended the schools' recent $45,000 purchase of a front-end alignment machine for the auto mechanics class. "Vocational education is every bit as important as academics," he said.
Trees was not sure whether he would support a meals tax, noting when residents eat out, it's a tax on them.
Byrd mentioned the money being returned by the schools and wondered if it could affect the tax rate.
County administrator Bonnie Johnson said the projection was for about $140,000 to be returned from the schools, social services, and the school food fund, and said that money was needed to create a balanced budget.
Treasurer Mary Susan Blankenship said the general fund for the proposed 2008-09 budget was estimated at $2.8 million, and she believed that figure would be reached by the time all revenue and expenses were made in the 2007-08 fiscal year. "These are estimates, not hard figures," she said. "I believe the fund balance will end up being a little more than we estimated."
"We have always based the fund balance on projections from the county administrator and the treasurer. The only difference this year is we have to have a 10-cent tax hike in order to get to balanced," Byrd said.
Cedar Creek District supervisor Percy Nowlin said the board had been through the budget "over and over again" trying to find more cuts.
"We have been over every single line multiple times," Hardbarger added. "We have cut office supplies, reduced money for travel and conferences and cut those out in some instances. I don't see anything else in here to cut without some form of efficiency study being done."
"I have to remind everyone we have cut $6.8 million from last year's budget," Trees said. "We have less revenue from the pumped storage facility and increased expenses for utilities. Literally, literally there are no more than a dozen $400-$500 items we can cut."
Byrd said county staff had been reduced 66 percent since January 1992 and wondered if a staffing study was the right thing to do. "That is a good way to make the ones we have left leave," he said.
Byrd added that school buses, cars for the sheriff's department and child care were cut. "We have cut every budget in the county back to level funding or less for next year," he said. "We have put more time into this one than any we have done since I have been on the board."
"If anybody can come up with any more cuts that I am willing to make, I will vote for it," Trees added. "The way the budget is prepared, we need a 10-cent tax increase. I'm all ears if anyone can come up with ways to cut it."
For the personal property tax, Nowlin made a motion to set the rate at 45 cents as proposed, but Byrd made a substitute motion for the 35-cent rate. Byrd said that would reduce the budget by $57,000 and called the 35-cent rate "more feasible and more appropriate."
There was no discussion of the business license fee following Byrd's motion not to adopt it. The only discussion of the vehicle fee came when Trees reminded the board the business license fee had been a part of balancing the budget. Nowlin said state law required a balanced budget and moved to set the fee at $10 instead of the proposed $7.50.
Citizens oppose tax hikes
As they had during previous meetings and public hearings, citizens speaking were against the proposed tax increases.
Carl Chestnut suggested quarterly appropriations. "There is too much money being spent. The supervisors don't have a handle on the money whatsoever," he said. "There is no way people can stand a 22 percent increase in the real estate tax."
M.G. O'Farrell suggested cutting the county work force by 50 percent while Rocky Phillips indicated the need for a meals tax.
Jay Trinca said he believed the tax increases were unnecessary and said the board had not sufficiently identified the county's wants and needs. As he has done several times at past meetings, Trinca cited a study done on the school system that, he said, showed "no discipline in the budget process."
"This is the second year in a row they (school system) have conducted a spending frenzy at the end of the year," Trinca said. "How about a little common sense and good judgement?
Claudia Trinca noted the schools spend $14,000 per student. "There has to be some end in sight. You are taking bread out of the mouths of real live people in the county."
School returns money to
county
Smith presented the school board's final financial picture to the board, and said the schools were returning $80,433 to the county's general fund, with slightly more than $79,500 of that sum from the instructional category. In addition, Smith said about $3,700 was being returned from school food service and about $28,000 from state funds to be received June 30 for a total of $112,576.
Smith said the school board had considered asking supervisors to re-appropriate the money to be placed in a contingency fund, for buying a school bus or to place money in the maintenance category for buying heating oil and propane for the coming school year.
Smith said the amount of school food money returned was reduced by $8,480 from the amount originally reported because the schools did not meet requirements for a state incentive grant for breakfast. In addition, the school board voted to spend about $103,000 in leftover money June 4, and Smith said that amount was later reduced to about $93,500 "for a number of reasons."
The decision to buy the front end machine, he said, was driven by the fact the current machine is nearing the end of its useful life and a new machine could not be funded in the 2008-09 budget. "We had the money available in instruction, and felt this was an appropriate place to purchase it," Smith said.
Hall asked about the emergency notification program, School Messenger, that the school system is buying. Smith said the schools looked at CodeRED, a citizens' alerting system the county is considering, and said if CodeRED had met the school system's needs it would have considered a partnership with the county.
Smith said School Messenger has email and text messaging capability in addition to phone calls and can automatically be updated from the school attendance program. In addition, he said, School Messenger has unlimited minutes, and with the large volume of calls the schools will make the county's minutes with CodeRED would likely be exceeded.
"It was the consensus of the (school) board that School Messenger was an important purchase for the schools. The limitations of CodeRED for school use were too great for us to ignore," Smith said.
Answering a question from Byrd, Smith said it would be no problem for law enforcement and emergency services to be added to the list of those notified when a change in school schedule due to weather or other reasons is needed.
Smith said buying a bus with the money returned to the county was a "pressing need," particularly the addition of a full-size bus with a handicapped lift. No action was taken on the schools' request to have the money re-appropriated at its June 25 meeting.
The supervisors' next scheduled meeting is July 8.
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