Virginia's General Assembly says
no new taxes (and don't take anything out of reserve funds). Yet transportation funding is non-existent for new construction and barely meets maintenance requirements.
It also looks as if counties and cities will have to absorb more of the costs for public education, as the state is "lowering" its Standards of Learning for public K-12 education (no wonder they call them SOLs).
All localities face routine increases for payroll, retirement, and health benefits along with absorbing soaring energy costs. Where does this leave the Town of Christiansburg's budget planners?
Well, to begin with, Virginia towns and cities are autonomous from the counties they are located within, and have to generate their own tax revenues. What they can tax, however, is strictly defined by the General Assembly.
For the 2007-2008 fiscal year, Christiansburg's budget was .... wait. Who knows? During the May 15, 2007 first reading, the specific dollar amount was not mentioned in the agenda item nor are minutes posted on the town's website. The
budget cannot be found on its website, either.
Council directed administration and its Finance Committee to make cuts, however, but at the next meeting on June 5th the proposed changes weren't provided to all council members. Note, too, that even the agenda for June 5 council meeting cannot be found on the town's website.
Subsequently, some council members requested and were provided with a comprehensive report of what allowable sources could provide revenue to the town -- taxes, their sources, any limits, and fees. The Mayor recently asked council members to
review this information again, in preparation for budget discussions.
So let's look instead at the 2006-2007 fiscal year. This shows the Town of Christiansburg received $3.782 Million from the state and just $21,159 in Federal funding. The total proposed budget was for $31 Million, and included $12.1 in carry over or bond proceeds, which means the town needed to generate a goodly chunk of its budget from other sources.
Noteworthy, too, was that as of June 30, 2007, the Town was projecting debt of $22.4 Million, including bonds to fund the Harkrader Sports Complex and Aquatic Center. Given that the aquatic center now isn't expected to be completed before the fall of 2009, one hopes the budgeted salary for an aquatics director was deferred. Additionally,
town citizens should expect that events hosted at either facility will generate revenue to pay a significant portion of this debt. Think tourism -- facility user fees, meals and maybe lodging taxes, too.
Also during the May 15 initial budget reading for FY 2006-2007, the town proposed increases to water and sewer charges, rezoning application fees, conditional use permit fees, returned check fees, and DMV stop fees. What other fees are collected? Look at any monthly telephone, non-residential energy or cable bills mailed to a town address for starters.
Question:
When is money collected by a government agency not a tax?
Answer:
When it's a "fee". One of the first things to do with the town's budget is to strip away carry over and funds provided by other sources. This includes nearly $88.5K in reimbursements by Sunset Cemetery, $2.4 Million from the state for street maintenance of primary roads and $493K for law enforcement.
Then take away the grant funding (temporary or one time sources), and eliminating the minuscule revenue from parking meters. Add in about $885K from solid waste services (user fees), another $81K recovered for law enforcement costs from court and parking fines (user fees), and $39K from rentals (general property and sale of surplus items).
This means the town generated approximately $16.7 Million from local sources for the 2006-07 fiscal year.
These sources include real and personal property assessments over and on top of what the county charges its residents, mobile home, machinery and tools, lodging, meals, cigarette (what about other tobacco products?), business related fees, and the town's portion of collected state sales tax revenue. The town also generated about $17.3K by earning interest on funds held in its bank accounts and a nearly equal amount from collecting penalties.
Next blog, a focus on what percent of the remaining budget these revenue sources represent, what percent new taxes were introduced at, rates they are today, and who pays them. Looking at other fees as sources of town revenue, we can question whether citizens pay for services they don't utilize.