County mulled budget and tax rate at Tuesday’s meeting

Board of Supervisors did not vote on a tax rate as originally planned for the Tuesday, April 28, meeting.

In a youtube video aired the previous day, Supervisor Chairman Billy Martin (Blue Ridge) said the county budget committee was still studying the impact of business shut-downs caused by the Covid-19 virus and subsequent state orders for people to maintain physical separation.

A number of people spoke at the April 20 public hearing about the tax rate, opposing the county’s plan to keep the rate at $0.79 per $100 value. This rate was adopted in 2016. However, not only have many people lost wages due to the pandemic, the county’s latest real estate reassessment increased property values by an average of 9.6 percent.

That windfall of about $4.6 million was absorbed into the county’s budget and committee members initially increased the county’s general fund budget for fiscal year 2020-2021 to $70.9 million.

The budget committee met on April 24 to discuss changes to the budget and made no recommendations. However, the committee has another meeting scheduled in early May to again discuss the budget and the tax rate.

It is possible the budget committee, which could meet up into June, could recommend lowering the tax rate or offer some type of tax credit to help people through the current abnormalities everyone is experiencing during the pandemic.

They could also keep recommend keeping the tax rate and the budget as originally planned.

Some of the items the county was considering adding included:

• Additional School Resource Officer

• Fire-EMS – 4 positions (1/1/21 start – Read Mountain Firer Station (24 / 7 coverage)

Increase in Juvenile Detention Center activity

• Market-based compensation adjustments from FY20

• $1 million increase in County funding (operations)

• $1.4 million in County funding for Capital Projects

The county had projected these and other additional expenses for next year: Comprehensive Plan Update, Economic Development, Small business assistance, Business retention and expansion, Exit 150 Area redevelopment, Greenfield development, Performance agreements.

Additionally, projected expenditures included upkeep of County buildings, including the planned renovation of the Botetourt County Courthouse, relocation of offices within Fincastle and to Greenfield,  technology enhancements, and a County-wide portable radio replacement program.

However, with the impact of the Covid-19 virus, the budget committee is reassessing priorities and the potential impact on revenues, particularly items such as the sales tax,  meals tax, and the transient occupancy tax. The latter two affect restaurants and hotels.

The county put a hiring freeze in place in March for non-public safety positions and instituted a discretionary spending freeze for operations and capital expenses. Large purchases have been delayed and are being reassessed, according to the county financial manager.

A number of people had emailed the supervisors complaining about the tax rate and the county’s budget. Those emails were in the supervisors’ packet, available on the county’s website, botetourtva.gov.

The supervisors will have to make a final determination of the tax rate and the county budget at the June meeting, as the new fiscal year begins July 1.                                                                        

— Story by Anita Firebaugh, Special to the Botetourt Bee, Photo BOS Icon by Cathy Benson