County advertises FY19 budget with 1-cent real estate tax increase

Without dissent the Warren County Board of Supervisors authorized advertisement of its proposed $107.8-million Fiscal Year 2019 budget, including a one-cent Real Estate Tax increase and a 10-cent hike to the Machinery and Tool Tax.  The increases would raise the Real Estate tax rate to 66-cents per $100 of assessed value; and Machinery/Tool tax to $2.05.

As explained in more detail below, the combined tax increases will produce about $575,000 in additional revenue.  That coupled with $1.1-million in cuts and the use of nearly $2-million in General Fund reserves will balance a total budget proposal of $107,826,301, requiring $76,251,417 of local revenue.  The FY18 county budget was $105,626,234, requiring local revenue of $73,955,107.

The unanimous Tuesday, March 27 vote on a motion by Tom Sayre, seconded by Archie Fox, came despite an early budget process commitment by the supervisors to approve an FY19 budget with no tax increases after last year’s divisive 3-cent real estate hike.  However, as Royal Examiner reported in the wake of March 23 budget work session discussion a perfect storm of financial variables made that impossible while maintaining viable county operations.

Those variables included: employee health insurance rate increases of 12% to about 20% for public schools; a public school budget including wage hikes to keep teacher salaries competitive after a decade of floundering to do so; unanticipated increases in the Sheriff’s Office budget to accommodate additional school security personnel in the wake of the Florida and Maryland school shootings in the last six weeks; and a combination of revenue losses totaling about $1.6 million.

Primary in the negative revenue column was the double whammy of the loss of over $570,000 in tax revenue from the Dominion Power plant due to a pollution-mitigation equipment exemption ruling by the State Corporation Commission and the loss of over $1-million in State Composite Index (which judges a community’s ability to fund its public schools) revenue.  County Administrator Doug Stanley observed that the composite index rating that decreased State contributions to the county’s public schools included that $570,000 in Dominion tax revenue the County no longer receives.  It is a situation that will not be corrected until the next budget cycle.

“We would have been in good shape without the Composite Index and Dominion tax revenue losses,” board Chairman Tony Carter observed at the March 23 work session of that double lost-revenue hit.

During that work session the county administrator traced cuts to the budget totaling $1,123,468; as well as the use of nearly $2-million in General Fund Balance reserves to help balance the coming fiscal year budget.  Additional revenues from the tax increases total about $511,850 on the real estate side – $404,850 from each penny hike, plus another $107,000 in Real Estate tax-based fees, primarily to Dominion Power – and an estimated $63,000 from the Machinery & Tool tax increase.

The total FY19 Warren County budget is now $107,826,301.  That number is up about $1.7 million from an originally-projected $106,051,279. However, that $107.8-million number includes all revenue sources, state, federal and schools.  The total of local County General Fund revenue necessary to balance the budget is $76,251,417.  That is up just over $1.8 million from original estimates.  The final proposed local appropriation to the public school budget is $25,849,992, up $2,428,828 from an optimistically penciled-in flat projection from FY18.

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School security costs explained

Above, Sheriff McEathron explains his SRO budget request at work session preceding March 27 board meeting; below, county supervisors and staff crunched the numbers toward a final FY19 budget proposal at a March 23 work session.

Prior to the March 27 meeting and budget advertisement vote, the supervisors met with Sheriff Daniel McEathron to discuss details of the numbers submitted to meet additional School Resource Officer (SRO) needs to beef up security at the county’s public schools.  The sheriff was absent from the March 23 work session at which Schools Superintendent Greg Drescher presented a request for another $326,905 in the sheriff’s office SRO budget to enhance school security.  That increase included $169,525 in personnel costs, $40,562 per new SRO deputy and $7,277 for increases to SRO administrative staff salaries.

The plan is to add four school resource officers so that each elementary school will now have a full-time SRO presence.  Currently there is one SRO assigned to each of the county’s two high schools and two middle schools, with one SRO circulating among the five elementary schools.

While North River Supervisor Dan Murray questioned the necessity that one of the SRO’s be a higher-ranking, and paid, lieutenant at the March 23 work session, he also observed, “I have been the most outspoken against a tax increase but to save the life of one child is worth it.”

And Murray and his colleagues appeared to accept Sheriff McEathron’s explanation on the necessity of adequate command staff – a lieutenant – to oversee the massive responsibility of providing security for nine schools, their students and staffs – “That’s huge, I know you’re responsible for the whole county, but that’s a lot,” the sheriff said of the SRO staff’s responsibilities.

The sheriff pointed out that he had reduced a captain’s position elsewhere in his department, and that a sergeant would be moved into the SRO lieutenant’s position, so that it was not an entire lieutenant’s salary that was being included in the SRO increase.  The SRO sergeant’s position already exists and that officer also serves as an on-site School Resource Officer.

Murray seemed amendable, if somewhat resigned, to the fact that as he said “like everywhere” the SRO department might be to his liking, a bit “top heavy”.

But with the specters of the Parkland, Florida and the St. Mary’s County, Maryland school shootings and fatalities over the past six weeks still looming large on everyone’s minds, the full SRO budget request of $692,997 appears to have survived the county chopping block.