THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503290434
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
If the city wants to pay for new schools, raise salaries, slow growth and beef up maintenance, the real estate tax rate must be increased by 4.8 cents.
That's the message the city staff gave to the City Council Tuesday in its proposed 1996-1997 combined capital and operating budgets.
The increase would still leave Virginia Beach with the lowest real estate tax rate of any city in the region, noted E. Dean Block, director of the Department of Management and Budget.
Beach residents would pay $1.189 for every $100 of assessed valuation on their homes, or $1,189 a year for a house valued at $100,000. As of last year, owners of comparable homes in other Hampton Roads cities paid more than $1,200, topped by residents of Norfolk, who paid $1,380 taxes on a $100,000 home.
The $838 million operating budget includes a proposal for a new tax on cellular phones up to $3 per month. That tax is expected to raise about $600,000 per year.
Because of staff efficiencies and lower-than-expected costs, a 27-cent tax increase per 1,000 gallons of water used will not be needed, according to the proposal.
Council members did not discuss the budgets Tuesday, but will hold a series of workshops and public hearings before May 9, when they are expected to approve the spending plans.
No major cuts in services were proposed, although Block said he has kept new programs to a minimum.
The budget suggests using 1.5 cents of the increased tax rate to fund the Agricultural Reserve Program, a proposal that has yet to be approved by the City Council. The program is designed to slow growth in the southern half of the city by paying landowners not to develop their land.
The rest of the tax rate increase, 3.3 cents, is targeted for the public schools, Block said.
City Manager James K. Spore has proposed funding $11.6 million in new program requests from the schools - which is $4 million less than the school district had sought. School funding accounts for 47 percent of the city's operating budget and 36 percent of its capital spending in the proposed budget.
Although the city cannot tell the school district how to spend its operating money, the capital budget indicates that the city staff does not support plans to renovate and expand the Celebration Station building on Virginia Beach Boulevard at Little Neck Road.
No new money was included in the capital budget for a proposed magnet school at the former Kemps Landing Intermediate School or for a proposed technical and career education center.
If the council adopts Spore's budget recommendations, the school district will have to decide whether it values these programs enough to cut other areas to find the necessary money.
In his budget message, Spore also said he does not support the school district's request to ask voters next year to authorize $107 million for new computers for the schools.
``The proposal does not include provisions for replacement or upkeep of the approximately 9,000 computers proposed to be acquired,'' Spore said in his message. ``No referendum is recommended prior to November 1996, and only at that time if technical and financial issues have been satisfactorily resolved.
Rather than ``venturing off into new major capital or operating initiatives,'' Block said the budget focuses on providing basic services. Most new projects will pay for themselves within a few years or are tied to federal or state grants, he said.
Maintaining city buildings and equipment also has increased as a budget priority, Block said, in the hope of limiting costlier repairs and replacements. For example, he said, he would like to resurface roads every 15 years instead of 17 to 18 years as has been the city's practice, and wants to replace the obsolete 2nd Police Precinct building at the Oceanfront.
``Basically, we're continuing services,'' Block said. ``This is a program of sustaining existing services.''
In conversations earlier this year with two dozen Virginia Beach residents, most supported the direction the city staff has chosen in this budget. The residents, the majority of whom had lived in the city for many years, said they wanted the city to concentrate on them, providing basic services for current residents rather than trying to encourage new residential development.
They also expressed support for city efforts to bring more jobs to Virginia Beach. Just over 18 percent of the proposed capital budget, or long-term spending plan, is dedicated to economic and tourism development.
The proposed $102 million capital budget calls for $10 million to be spent on new roads, including the extension of Landstown Road to serve a new amphitheater and proposed schools, and the widening of International Parkway for the expansion of the Lillian Vernon factory; $5 million for new buildings, including the new police station; $3 million to begin implementing a new Outdoors Plan; and $28 million for economic and tourism development, including nearly $9 million for the amphitheater the council was expected to approve Tuesday night.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH BUDGET TAXES by CNB