By JONAS BEALS
Stafford County may have to come up with almost $9 million to meet the budget shortfall project for the fiscal year that begins July 1
That information came from budget division director Nancy Collins who yesterday presented supervisors with a preliminary look at next year's budget. As expected, the county is facing lean times, and supervisors will have to make some difficult decisions in the coming months.
Staff has projected that the county will need to come up with an additional $19.4 million to meet the minimum needs of the budget. But that figure then was pared down to $8.8 million--the bare minimum.
"That basically keeps the lights on," County Administrator Anthony Romanello said.
The smaller figure does away with customary items like salary step increases that can become optional in tough financial times.
A dramatic slowdown in development activity, falling personal property values and declining state revenues were blamed for the financial problems. To make up the shortfall, supervisors will have to contemplate budget cuts, tax increases or some combination of the two. The debate is only now getting started.
Supervisors asked Romanello to pursue three scenarios that were presented to the board.
Scenario one maintains the current real estate tax rate of 84 cents and calls for an across-the-board budget cut of 8.2 percent.
Scenario two also maintains the current real estate tax rate of 84 cents, but exempts public safety and schools from having to cut their budgets. In that case, all other governmental agencies would face cuts of 21.7 percent.
Scenario three is a combination of a tax increase and budget cuts. The real estate tax rate would rise to 86.9 cents, accompanied by a budget cut of 4.1 percent across all county agencies, including schools and public safety.
"It's premature to talk about raising taxes," Supervisor Paul Milde said. In his opinion, it would be nearly impossible to protect schools and public safety from budget cuts.
Supervisor Bob Woodson agreed. "Before we look at taxes," he said, "we need to look at spending."
Decisions are months away, but the board hopes to get a jump on the situation by looking at the situation from multiple angles.
"I would like to give Anthony [Romanello] a free hand to be flexible with this," Supervisor George Schwartz said.
Earlier this year, the board approved $5.6 million of cuts to the fiscal year 2009 budget. Savings came in the form of spending cuts and a staff reduction of six positions in the Planning and Code Compliance offices.
Jonas Beals: 540/368-5036
Email: jbeals@freelancestar.com