THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605120142
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LISE OLSEN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 192 lines
When you go to the zoo, or the opera, remember to thank the residents of Norfolk. They're supporting those institutions.
And the next time you go to the Virginia Marine Science Museum, or to a concert at the Pavilion, be sure to praise the residents of Virginia Beach. Their tax money made those places possible.
In fact, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach taxpayers help support nearly all of the cultural and professional sporting events in the region. Chesapeake and Suffolk, in contrast, devote almost none of their city budgets to museums, civic centers or concert halls. And the two cities spend less on parks as well.
Of course, Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Portsmouth also receive revenue in exchange for their investments. And they don't exactly plan cultural expenses together, which explains why we will soon have three theaters with multi-story screens (in Virginia Beach, Hampton and Norfolk) - but not enough money to expand the Virginia Zoo.
These and other truths about our cities were revealed in a review of the most mundane of documents: municipal operating budgets. The 1996-97 budget has been approved in Portsmouth. More discussion is slated for council meetings in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Suffolk and Chesapeake.
The Virginian-Pilot took a list of items that citizens, in recent interviews, said were important: planning for growth, quality of life, schools and public safety. Then we compared total operating budgets for those items (planning departments, libraries, museums, concert venues, schools, police and fire departments) to the number of citizens. We also used building permits (for planning), and violent felonies (for police). Simple math produced a tab for each item that could be compared - though individual cities' budget practices and organizational structure can make that difficult.
The analysis revealed the huge difference in support for art and leisure activities, but it also illustrated the different strategies and self-images that make South Hampton Roads cities such a diverse group. Here's more on each theme:
Education
Traditionally, Virginia Beach has spent the least per student of all local cities, and Norfolk has spent the most. But that's changing.
Forced by a deficit scandal and a fire at Princess Anne High to approve emergency funding for its school district, and encouraged to increase funding for next year by a new superintendent, the Beach council is now considering spending more per student next year than all other area cities besides Chesapeake.
The proposed operating budgets indicate that Chesapeake will spend the most per student in terms of local funds, followed by Virginia Beach. Norfolk ranks third, followed by Portsmouth and Suffolk.
Still, computers are scarce and portable classrooms are plentiful throughout the region - both things that citizens are concerned about.
Planning
Virginia Beach, where growth has been slowed by water restrictions, spends more per building permit on planning and building inspections than other, faster-growing cities in South Hampton Roads.
Planning and building inspections departments do not seem to be as well-funded in Suffolk and Chesapeake, judging by the number of building permits. However, these functions are especially hard to compare because cities often farm out planning and inspection duties among several departments.
Such departments don't just review developers' requests. They can also help the city be proactive in managing growth. Beach planners, for example, have helped develop plans for tree preservation, roadway corridors and bikeways. They're now holding town meetings across the city to get citizen input on how to make the city better.
All that's hard to do with a very small department.
Chesapeake, for example, has 12 planners - five of whom spend their time reviewing current growth proposals. Six handle everything else: the Chesapeake Bay act, the bikeway plans, the comprehensive plan, and so on. The 12th is the assistant director, who helps manage the department along with other planning duties.
The department requested funding for another planner this year, but so far no money has been put into the budget for the position.
Suffolk has five planners, according to its budget.
Spending for planning departments and code enforcement may seem dull - but Chesapeake citizens put controlling and planning for growth at the top of their personal agendas. And Virginia Beach and Suffolk residents are worried about growth control, too.
Parks
Norfolk - the most built-up city - also has the most park acreage in South Hampton Roads. The city also supports the region's botanical garden and the Virginia Zoo.
Portsmouth and Norfolk spend the most on parks and recreation - followed by Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Suffolk, which spends less than half per capita than Portsmouth or Norfolk.
Suffolk's park director, Dinesh Tiwari, admits the city lags in meeting the recreational needs of its growing population. But he said that it is experimenting with several new ideas to try to catch up: building a recreation center in conjunction with a new school in northern Suffolk, and working to develop a park in 600 acres of waterfront property that the Navy has declared as surplus.
Tiwari said the city also will be looking for ideas from citizens in developing its open spaces and recreation plan, part of the development of a new comprehensive plan.
Libraries
The suburban cities - Virginia Beach and Chesapeake - spend more on libraries than do the urban cities. And it shows in the collections: Virginia Beach will add about 80,000 new works next year, Chesapeake will add 74,000. Norfolk will add less than half of Virginia Beach's totals, and Portsmouth trails behind them. Suffolk officials did not provide information on their purchases.
It's hard for the urban libraries to keep up.
And the library clients' needs are different, said Portsmouth's library director, Dean Burgess.
``In the suburban setting you have people just tearing down the doors - they can't get enough books. The New York Times Book Review comes out and everyone wants the books in it. . . . In the urban library, we're serving business communities, so we need a deeper, fuller collection. We also serve people who can't afford to have books in their home, and they haven't ever read The New York Times Review of Books.''
Burgess laments the fact that no city in Hampton Roads seems to have the money - or the inclination - to fund a true, full-service reference library, one with a complete range of current reference works that anyone in the region might need.
Public safety
Simply put, spending on public safety is greatest in cities with the highest crime rate. Portsmouth and Norfolk, the most urban and poorest cities, spend the most per capita on police protection.
Norfolk, though, spends far more per capita than Portsmouth, which has a higher crime rate. And that forces Portsmouth police to deal with more serious crimes per officer than those in any other local department.
Meanwhile, in the suburbs, pressure is building to increase funding for public safety as well - especially in Virginia Beach, which swells every summer with tourists, and in Chesapeake, where two firefighters died in the line of duty this year.
Virginia Beach police have dubbed their quest for more funding ``Code Blue.'' They've taken out full-page ads urging citizens to help them maintain their city's low crime rate - and argued that the huge police presence at the Oceanfront in the summer may be shortchanging the rest of the city. The Beach council agreed to add eight officers next year after a public hearing last week.
The Chesapeake Fire Department, which is already slated to get more money per capita than any other city's fire department next year, is making a strong argument for putting four-men crews on fire engines and for improving communication systems. Both issues drew more attention after the two firefighters died.
Thursday, the Chesapeake council informally approved giving more funding to the Fire Department, agreeing to add 44 firefighters over the next three years. Nine more would be added next year, which would boost the city's per capita support even higher.
``We think they should be spending more because we need more people,'' said Mark Simmons, president of the Professional Firefighters of Chesapeake. ``For the last few years, it seems like we were on the back burner. . . . They've been looking at how the police and the teachers have been keeping up, the firefighters haven't been.''
More about cultural venues: museums and civic centers
Norfolk has long billed itself as the cultural, educational and financial center of the region.
But Portsmouth and Virginia Beach will spend more per capita on museums next year than Norfolk, according to city operating budgets.
Cost comparison is complicated because the cities all pay debt service on local museums, which can be hard to trace. And some privately owned museums have unusual arrangements with the cities to pay utility, landscaping or other costs.
Still, Virginia Beach seems to be pulling ahead. The city's operating budget for next year includes a lot of one-time expenditures for the expansion of the Virginia Marine Science Museum, which will become one of the nation's largest aquariums. This expense represents a huge increase for the Beach's museums department. As well, it could signal a new era in the city's cultural interests.
But it's also a good investment, says E. Dean Block, Virginia Beach's director of management services.
``Before we expanded the museum, we did a feasibility study which told us that the investment would pay for itself in terms of economic activity because it represented such a major attraction.''
Portsmouth's Children's Museum, which receives much of the city's museum money, has also been a less costly but highly successful attraction.
Together, the three cities have boosted the region's ability to attract tourists.
Suffolk and Chesapeake have been basically spectators in this process. MEMO: This report was compiled from city budgets, interviews with city and
school officials, the FBI, the Builders and Contractors Exchange Inc.,
and The State Data Center.
ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Research by LISE OLSEN; graphic by JANET SHAUGHNESSY/The
Virginian-Pilot
WHAT ARE YOUR CITY'S PRIORITIES
SOURCE: A Virginian-Pilot comparison of proposed operating budgets
for the five cities for 1996-97. Portsmouth budget has been
approved.\ [For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: CITY BUDGETS TIDEWATER HAMPTON ROADS by CNB