Well, if filing IRS forms isn't enough fun for you right now, just remember this is the budget season for our local and state governments.
If you live in
Blacksburg or
Radford, you can check out their budgets from fiscal year 2007-08 on their web site.
If you want to see the proposed
local school or
county budgets, check out their respective websites, too.
Not so much for Christiansburg. It is not on the town's website.
You can pay ten-cents a page and get a copy of it at the town hall, though. Since it's only about 45 pages (or $4.50 per citizen request), it may be a bargain compared to the other localities which average 257 pages to communicate fiscal details to their citizens.
This purchased copy may or may not be the final, or adopted, budget. There was some wrangling late in the process last year, and during the budget vote even town council members didn't have final numbers in front of them.
What typically happens in the every-four-year reassessment process (noting the town uses property values as determined by the county), is that property values increase. A lot. Sometimes quite a lot.
If the
tax rate remains the same as before the reassessment, you experience a
tax increase -- you pay more even though the tax rate did not change, because the value of what is being taxed has increased.
So, for example, the county board of supervisors generally reduces its tax rate after a reassessment -- but not so much as to reduce overall tax collections. In non-reassessment years, you typically see that tax rate creep upwards to cover increased operating costs (utilities, employee health care premiums & pay raises, etc.) or to pay for new services (new hires, equipment or furniture, etc.).
In last year's town budget process, council directed that cuts be made to the proposed budget. After that, Councilmen Wade and Canada pushed for a neutral budget -- a reduction to the tax rate, so increases in real property taxes (due to higher property values), were minimized. They argued that whether through an increase in assessed value or an unchanged tax rate, people would be paying more. Much more. Especially when
added on top of the county's increased tax assessment, or increases from state taxes and fees.
Historically, council allowed the tax rate to remain unchanged as assessed values increased, providing a significant boost to tax revenues collected by the town ... even before adding in any new or increased "fees" the town approved.
The new mayor was quite concerned and lobbied for the tax rate to remain unchanged, stating he didn't want to "raise taxes" by having to come back for an increase at a later date during the fiscal year. Thankfully, it wasn't a tie vote.
Not to worry. Including expenses that may not have been listed as line items in the adopted town budget -- such as a 17% raise for the town manager, hiring a cemetery manager at about $34,000 a year before benefits (to replace the retiring, unpaid volunteer), or passing $100,000 over to the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce's Tourism Development Council (TDC) in 2007 -- Christiansburg's budget is not in the red.
Watch for more on Christiansburg's current budget process. Better yet, this provides another reason citizens should attend a town council meeting themselves. But don't expect the budget to be final by the time election day rolls around on May 6, 2008.
The next town council meeting is
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 at 7:30 pm in the town hall.