Divided board approves budget, 6-cent real estate tax hike to support it

After listening to over three hours of public comment from 41 speakers on a proposed 6-cent real estate tax increase in support of a $112,499,706 Fiscal Year 2019/20 budget, a divided Warren County Board of Supervisors approved that budget and the full, staff-proposed 6-cent tax hike to a rate of 65.5 cents per $100 of assessed value by a 3-2 margin. Board Chairman Dan Murray joined Linda Glavis and Tony Carter, who made and seconded the approval motion respectively, in forming the majority for the full budget and revenue-generating tax hike to support it.

Tom Sayre said he would support no tax increase but seemed at a loss to say what he would cut from the budget to accommodate the consequent $3,344,076 revenue loss. Archie Fox said he would support a compromise to a 62.5 cent real estate rate, 3 cents above the post-reassessment equalized rate of 59.5 cents. Before the state-mandated equalization in the wake of the higher reassessments the real estate rate was 66 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Also passed at the Tuesday evening, May 7 special meeting, this time by a unanimous vote prior to the budget and tax rate vote, was Carter’s amendment to Glavis’s original motion to cut 1.2% from each county departmental budget and transfer those cuts into a contingency fund to assure that outside agency and non-profit agency requests for county assistance remained funded.

Also approved was a $2.8 million school cafeteria fund and a personal property tax relief rate of 39% on qualifying vehicles valued at $1,001 to $20,000; and the same 39% relief rate on the first $20,000 of vehicles valued over $20,000; as well as a 100% relief on vehicles valued under $1,000.

The press table count was 23 speakers in favor of the budget and the revenue-generating tax increase to support it, 12 speakers against any tax increase, and six speakers sending a mixed message in support of some aspects of the budget and revenue needs to fund teacher and other county personnel salary hikes with limited or no tax increase.

It was a divided county board that faced off with a divided full house of citizens with divergent opinions on governmental operations and budgetary needs Tuesday night. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini

On the more measured side of budget opponents, issues of past appearances of conflicts of interest of public officials or employees in County or EDA dealings including land acquisitions were raised; as were tendencies to authorize new spending without adequately exploring alternative solutions that might minimize the necessity of those expenditures.

Other opponents question what they called exorbitant six-figure salaries of some departmental administrators being included in across-the-board staff salary increases and the necessity of county-owned vehicles provided to some staff, including administrators, seeming to always be on the high-dollar end.

But as was also apparent at the April 9 tax rate public hearing, a portion of the no tax hike contingent reflected little knowledge of the governmental or budgetary process backed up by a great deal of animosity directed toward some board members for perceived corruption related to the EDA scandal surrounding an alleged $17.6 million dollars in embezzled or misdirected county economic development resources. While the EDA still conducts a great deal of business inside the town limits, the County has taken on the primary EDA oversight role since taking on the Town’s portion of EDA operational funding in recent years as part of the Route 340/522 North Corridor compensation agreement.

In fact the tone of some citizen comment was so personal and even eye-popping in a social-media lynch mob style that it drew rebukes from some speakers. Warren County Sheriff’s candidate Jason Poe even departed from his prepared, essentially campaign speech remarks to admonish one speaker’s assertion that law enforcement funding to fight the opioid epidemic was unnecessary because narcotic overdoses “may be nature’s way of protecting the gene pool.”

Jason Poe reacted with shock at one citizen’s comment regarding public safety funding and potential consequences of drug addiction.

Poe expressed shock “at the words that came out of that gentleman’s mouth”, noting the speaker’s past history in county emergency response service, a service Poe said he hoped he would never be allowed to return to.

On a day in which another school shooting occurred with at least one fatality and a number of injuries, this one in Colorado, that speaker, Gary Kushner, also dismissed increased funding to the sheriff’s department’s school resource officer budget as “an emotional reaction to the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida” adding that “other school shootings are equally disturbing but they don’t happen in elementary schools … resource officers in elementary schools are a feel-good measure rather than addressing a real threat,” Kushner asserted apparently blocking out the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut; or perhaps just dismissing it as a hoax as some right-wing extremist government conspiracy blogs do.

For budget opponent Gary Kushner, saving money appeared to outweigh saving lives related to drug addiction or public school security.

But in the end it was the majority “do what needs to be done to stabilize crucial county-funded staffing situations” contingent that held the day. Those speakers included former county supervisors John Marlow and John Vance, local businessman George McIntyre, several county teachers, former R-MA Commandant General Mac Hobgood, current County Planning Commission member Ralph Rinaldi, former County Planning Commission Chairman Mark Bower, and even the board’s Deputy Clerk Emily Mounce, who left her place on the dais to defend those county board members and staff she works for and with. Also present, but not rising to restate his April 9 tax rate public hearing comment that the board should focus on budget decisions “for the community instead of for those who moved here to live cheap”, was school system Director of Secondary Instruction Alan Fox.

Noting the tone and mood of a portion of those who had spoken before him, Marlow noted “the loss of confidence” expressed in those now holding public office by the anti-budget, anti-tax contingent, adding, “then there is another group that wants you to fund the budget – what do you do? You make a decision. What I’d do is look to the future – education is the future,” Marlow told this generation’s supervisors.

Gen. Hobgood agreed, telling the board that after a lifetime in education it was apparent to him that “teachers make all the difference in education – you must invest in teachers, every dollar spent will come back to the community tenfold,” he said of statistics related to community expenses related to services often spent on drop outs or undereducated children as they rise to adulthood versus contributions made by well educated students with emotional ties to their community.

Former R-MA Commandant Gen. Mac Hobgood told the board every dollar invested in quality teachers will return to the community tenfold in long-term investment.

Current EDA board Treasurer Tom Patteson rose late among the speakers to point out that the first thing prospective business clients look at when pondering location to a community is the quality of the public schools system, with the second being the status of medical services and facilities. Unfortunately no one had the opportunity to ask the Valley Health-tied Patteson why the EDA acquiesced along with both local municipal governments to Valley Health’s plan to reduce services at its new hospital facilitated with a $60-million loan acquired through the EDA.

“Nobody wants their taxes up, but almost everyone wants better salaries for teacher, fire and emergency services personnel … Let’s talk about the word retention … I speak in favor of the budget and if you can find a way to not spend as much – do that. But look to the future, Vance said echoing his fellow former supervisor Marlow, “You have to plan for the future,” Vance who left the board in 2005 told his successors.

Saying she spoke as a county taxpayer in support of the 6-cent tax increase, Mounce pointed out that the home she purchased in 2015 for slightly above its assessed value of $174,000 had increased in value in the last reassessment to $203,500. Implementation of a 6-cent real estate tax hike on the nearly $30,000 of additional value would equal a $184 increase to her annual real estate tax payment, she said.

“I would be glad to pay this additional $184 to the government for the teachers in Warren County Public Schools,” Mounce said. She held her own sister up to illustrate today’s teacher’s devotion to their profession and the students they serve.

“I’ve lost count of how many thousands of dollars she has spent out of her salary … and how many hours beyond the normal school day and normal school semester she has spent to increase the quality of her classroom as a learning experience for her children.”

Mounce became emotional in addressing some of the personal vitriol she had witnessed aimed at her bosses. “When I first moved to Warren County I was looking forward to beautiful mountain views, a small-town pace and neighborly people after living downtown in a city for nearly three years.

Board critic Paul Gabbert, front row bottom right, doesn’t appear impressed as Emily Mounce comments on the tone of much of the criticism of her bosses on the county board.

“However, as I saw what occurred here on April 9^th and as I saw here tonight I listened and watched as my colleagues, those I respect with the utmost sincerity, were demeaned, cursed, booed, mocked, belittled, laughed and jeered at by many of the speakers. Many women have cheered and applauded the cruel words and vicious comments. It is heartbreaking to see over 50 years of collective public service and experience cast casually aside with animosity and paranoia and venomous hatred.

“I heard at the public hearing that there’s a bullying problem in our public schools. I don’t know if this is true but I do know children look to their parents and the adults in their lives to develop skills on how to react and respond to situations. And what I’ve heard, seen and read in the past few months, there is undoubtedly a bullying problem among the adults in our community as well … We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves; we have not been quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; we have not been kind and compassionate to one another … just as God has forgiven us …”

Another speaker pointed to an irony in the two largely-attended and belligerently raucous budget and tax rate public hearings’ proximity to the Easter holiday.

“I feel you are in the seat Pontius Pilate once had,” Kim Okland told the supervisors, asking metaphorically, “Are you going to crucify the school system to the cries of ‘Give us Barabbas’?”

By a narrow 3-2 majority about a half hour before the midnight hour tolled, the answer was no.

If your curiosity is up, the Royal Examiner’s video of the entire public hearing and board discussion of its budgetary options will be posting soon. But get the popcorn, with two breaks it was over four hours long with County Administrator Doug Stanley’s power point on the budget proposal to open the special meeting.

The daughter of community activists Melanie and Mike Salins, Brenna looks like press row was feeling as the midnight hour approached Tuesday night.