Budgets for next year are being formulated in Rockbridge County and Buena Vista, with governing bodies in both jurisdictions aiming to close considerable gaps between planned expenditures and projected revenues.
In the county, the budget gap stands at $708,709. Buena Vista has a much heftier gap of $1.7 million. The city’s budget and finance committee was poring over its draft budget document this past Thursday, April 3, line by line, in search of savings.
At a special budget meeting of the Board of Supervisors last Monday, March 31, members were talking about whether they would make cuts in spending, raise taxes or go with some combination of the two.
The supervisors are hoping to complete their budget work this Monday, April 14, during their regular meeting, then advertise a proposed budget in next Wednesday’s newspaper and schedule a public hearing for Monday, April 28.
Buena Vista City Council is planning to hold a public hearing on its proposed budget Thursday, May 1, with an eye toward adopting a budget on Thursday, May 15.
County Mulls Tax Hike
“We need to increase revenues,” said Supervisor Dan Lyons at the Board’s March 31 work session. “It wouldn’t hurt my feelings to increase the [real estate] tax rate by 5 cents.”
Supervisor Bob Day observed that the budget draft calls for taking more than $4 million out of the county’s fund balance. “We can’t keep taking money out of reserves to balance the budget,” he said.
He suggested raising the tax rate by 8 cents. “It would take us to 69 cents,” and reduce how much is being taken out of reserves, he said.
“I respect my two colleagues but I disagree with their sentiments,” responded Supervisor David McDaniel. “There are still things in the budget to look at cutting.” He said he didn’t want to raise the tax rate by more than a penny or two.
Supervisor Leslie Ayers weighed in on protecting the fund balance. “We can’t keep plowing through our reserves,” she said.
McDaniel said he didn’t believe the county should be funding nonprofits. “We’re forcing our citizens to donate to these organizations,” he contended.
Ayers countered that the county is supporting some very worthwhile organizations that well serve the county’s needs.
Day said he didn’t disagree with what McDaniel was saying about defunding nonprofits. “Maybe we should put them on notice for next year.”
Responding to a request from the supervisors, Finance Director Ashton Beverly said the draft budget calls for giving $219,479 in non-contractual contributions to nonprofits.
As for setting a tax rate in the draft budget that is to be advertised for a public hearing, Ayers said she’s hearing that there may be a consensus for raising the real estate tax rate by 2 or 3 cents from its current rate of 61 cents per $100 valuation.
The draft budget, as it stands now, without any tax or fee increases, would generate revenues of $64,091,878. Planned expenditures come to $64,800,587, which represent an increase of $328,863. The budget gap is $708,709. A penny on the real estate tax generates $326,571.
Cost of living raises of 3 percent are included for county employees, with an additional 10 percent raise for fire and rescue personnel. Costs for health insurance premiums are level. The planned local appropriation to the schools is $17,284,708, which would be an increase of $17,978 over this year.
Funds to be taken from reserves for capital projects are $4,626,299, including $763,602 in restricted reserves from EMS recovery fees that must be used for fire and rescue projects.
Among the major capital projects planned are $560,000 for four new school buses, $231,270 for Central Dispatch, $239,635 for the county’s first bond payment on the new Social Services building, $229,300 for the South River collection center, $357,600 for new sheriff’s department vehicles, $171,625 for security upgrades to the courthouse and $1,774,300 in local matching funds for the VATI broadband project.
Work On BV Budget Heading into last week’s meeting of the budget and finance committee, Buena Vista’s draft budget for FY26 called for requested general fund expenditures of $17,932,950 with projected revenues of $16,218,173, leaving a gap of $1,714,777.
The draft includes all requests from department heads and new requests of $150,000 from nonprofits. There are no new city positions requested, though there will be a few existing positions shuffled between departments and there are some new costs associated with a new state-funded position in the office of the commonwealth’s attorney’s.
Health care premiums are to go up by 12 percent, or approximately $143,000. The city is to lose revenues of $150,000 annually because Mountain Gateway Community College is vacating the city’s Vista Links property.
There are no raises for city employees built into the current budget draft. The state compensation board has 1.5 percent bonuses and 3 percent COLA raises for state constitutional officers.
Grants for two school resource officers are expiring. If the city chooses to retain these positions it will do so at a cost of $159,658. Grants for the other two SROs are set to expire in each of the next two fiscal years (FY 27 and FY 28).
The one-year grant for two community resource officers – $202,160 – is only for the current fiscal year. Grant funding that comes to the schools is still available for the two non-uniformed school safety officers.
Although individual city departments are requesting increased funding that is included in the budget draft, all departments will probably be limited to level funding, said City Manager Jason Tyree. The city will be obligated to cover small increases in funding for regional entities – those amounts are determined by regional contracts.
The School Board is requesting $2.55 million in local funding, which would represent an increase of $150,000 over the current year.
Public works and parks and recreation each have proposed projects that probably won’t be funded in next year’s budget, Tyree pointed out. Still, the transfer from the general fund to parks and recreation is listed at $602,370, which would be an increase of $195,033, or 47.9 percent.
Buena Vista’s budget and finance committee has budget work sessions scheduled for today (Wednesday) and Thursday for 3:30 p.m. each day.
