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Rockbridge County’s budget gap has been closed after four weeks of budget work sessions by the Board of Supervisors.
What was a gap of $2.4 million four weeks ago between planned expenditures and anticipated revenues for next year was pared down to zero by Monday. The supervisors are now prepared to take a balanced budget for fiscal year 2024 to a public hearing next month that calls for “equalized” tax rates for both real estate and personal property.
A week ago, the budget gap stood at $659,677. Major revisions to spending plans for the schools and the Rockbridge Regional Jail were able to wipe out the remaining gap.
The planned transfer of local funds for the schools is now set at $16,719,567, which would be an increase of $739,784, or 4.63 percent, over the current year. This will allow the schools to give employees pay raises of 5 percent. The planned transfer was reduced by $362,257 to account for lowering pay raises from 7 to 5 percent.
, page B7 The planned appropriation for the jail was lowered by $409,100. The county’s share of the jail’s operational costs for next year is now set at $2,291,173, which would be $151,367, or 6.2 percent, less than for the current year.
Planned expenditures and projected revenues for next year’s budget both now stand at $56,753,561, which would be an increase of $3,546,189, or 6.66 percent, over the current year.
The supervisors are planning to set the real estate tax rate at 61 cents per $100 assessed value, which would be a reduction of 13 cents from the current rate of 74 cents, to offset a 21 percent increase in property values due to reassessments. The personal property tax rate is to be raised from $3.80 to $4.25 per $100 value to account for declining values of used cars.
Because the gap has been closed, a final budget work session scheduled for Monday, April 3, has been cancelled. At their next regular meeting on April 10, the supervisors will schedule a public hearing on the proposed budget and tax rates. The current schedule calls for the public hearing to be held on April 24 and adoption of the budget to take place on May 1.
