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Editorial
Although Buena Vista’s overall financial situation appears to be sound, the city is heading into a challenging budget planning season as it girds itself for the upcoming fiscal year. The challenges that lie ahead could have implications for the proposed mega-schools capital project that may be put to the voters in a referendum later in the year.
Expenditures in the upcoming fiscal year budget are to climb appreciably in a number of categories, Finance Director Steve Bolster told City Council’s finance committee last week. One especially significant spending item for the city will be debt payments on the Mountain Gateway Community College’s Rockbridge Center on Vista Links Drive. MGCC has been making lease payments to the city for use of this facility that have covered the approximately $150,000 annual debt payments in recent years for construction of the 18-year-old building.
Because MGCC is moving out of this building and into the Wilson Workforce Training Center and adjacent McCormick building on Forest Avenue this summer, MGCC will no longer be making lease payments to the city for the building on Vista Links Drive. The $150,000 annual debt payments thus become the sole responsibility of the city moving forward, beginning with the next fiscal year.
Health insurance premiums for city employees are going up by 12 percent next year, which is going to cost the city an additional $143,000 to cover the employer’s share of the increase. Grant funding for two of the city’s four school resource officers is going away in the next fiscal year, meaning the city will have to come up with nearly $150,000 to cover this lost funding, if these two SROs are to be retained.
On the positive side of the ledger, the city’s general fund got an infusion of approximately $2 million late last year in remaining American Rescue Plan Act money that was earmarked for eligible expenditures of salaries and fringe benefits for public safety over the previous three fiscal years. This, in effect, added $2 million to the city’s general fund, because those expenditures had already been made.
Also, significant investments in economic development projects from the private sector are being made in the city now and are expected to continue in coming years. Multiple housing projects are in the offing. MGCC’s looming presence in downtown is expected to attract major investments in restaurants and retail establishments in the city’s business district.
The multi-million-dollar question that awaits city leaders, and potentially the city’s electorate later this year, is what kind of investment the city can afford to make in its schools in coming years? The preferred choice of the Joint School Board-City Council Facilities Committee appears to be a new pre-k through grade 7 school adjacent to Parry McCluer High School that, with requisite improvements to PMHS, is expected to have a price tag in the neighborhood of $60 million.
A much less expensive alternative that hasn’t received much public attention could be to convert the soon-to-be vacated MGCC building on Vista Links Drive into a middle school. A feasibility study is being conducted by an outside consultant to help determine the future use of this building. Ideas that have been mentioned include an economic development project, a relocation of the city courts, or, yes, a relocation of the city’s middle school, an aging structure that everyone seems to agree needs to be replaced.
The feasibility study is expected to be completed by the end of this month so we should know shortly whether converting the building into a middle school is a realistic option and what the costs might be.
Another consideration that is to affect what school option the city can afford is the need for an expensive upgrade to the city’s wastewater treatment plant that could cost the city tens of millions of dollars. Federal grant funding is supposed to lessen the city’s financial burden for this project but, with all of the slashing of federal funding now taking place, who knows whether this source of funding will be available in the future.
Budget season is upon us and Buena Vista’s leaders are to be confronted with critical decisions that will have an enormous impact on the city’s long-term future.
