The City Manager proposed his budget last night.  We haven’t had any work sessions on it yet (the first is Wed night if you’re interested) so I don’t know the nitty-gritty yet but at first glance, I’m as happy as the situation allows.  The Council guidance to the Manager was to hold property tax bills flat.

As the Manager developed the budget and took into account the falling real estate values, he elected to cut the budget some more and came in with a smaller budget than we had looked for.  The primary reason is that the valuation for commercial property isn’t falling as fast as are residential properties so when we increase the rate 20% to keep residential tax bills the same, commercial tax bills go through the roof. 

So, some numbers: if the average residential tax bill was held even the rate would have been $1.57.  This would have increased commercial taxes by 41%.  Staff felt this wasn’t really workable (I agree) and the manager has proposed a rate of $1.37.  At this rate, the average residential bill will fall by 12% and the average commercial bill will increase by 23%.  In order to offset some of the increase in the commercial tax bills, several business taxes are to be trimmed to help even the load.  This is very fair as commercial property owners have seen increases in excess of 20% for the past 3 years and it is a problem.  In VA we can’t have different rates for residential and commercial properties.

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Well, we had a pretty long meeting last night with the new boss of the City’s Fire and Rescue department – Chief Wood.  I was reasonably impressed with his presentation.  He’s only been on the job for about 3 months or so but clearly has a grasp of the issues facing his new department.  Using a hybrid of data collected by our volunteers over the years, industry standard trends and new data, he made an excellent presentation.

Of immediate interest, especially given the economic environment we find ourselves in, was his proposal for adding 6 staff members and opening a second station to improve response times in the southern section of the City.  I am concerned about the response times there but of equal interest to me is the addition of staff and that station.  I need to see what both of those things mean in the context of a longer-term plan as I want to ensure that I understand what I’m signing the citizens up for by agreeing to all of that.

Understanding all of this will take a fair amount of work and much more give and take between the council and the Chief.  We’ll get there and, when we do, I know we’ll have the best possible plan.