Stafford County Administrator Bill Ashton on Tuesday night unveiled a proposed $1.12 billion local government budget for the next fiscal year that would increase the real-estate tax rate by 6 cents.
That might not go over well with some taxpayers. But it’s the product of unprecedented fiscal times, Ashton told the board of supervisors.
“It’s not an easy budget,” he said. “But it’s an honest one.”
The spending plan calls for raising the tax rate from the current figure of $0.9236 per $100 of assessed value to $0.985. And the county fire levy also would go up, from $0.0131 per $100 of valuation to $0.014.
What does that mean for property owners?
The median assessed home value in Stafford is $477,100, and the average real estate tax bill would go up by $462, or $38 per month, to $4,699.
Before they could come up with these numbers, though, county budget-writers had to deal with mandatory increases in spending that would have caused a 16.6-cent tax rate hike even without any new programs or initiatives, Ashton told the supervisors.
Those include opening three new schools and trying to make up for $40 million in lost revenue that resulted from tax relief for seniors and disabled veterans, the county administrator said.
To craft the budget, then, Ashton’s staff made use of $6.9 million in reductions and savings from this fiscal year’s base budget.
Also, though county departments requested to hire more than 81 new workers, only two new jobs are included in the budget, Ashton said. And they are revenue-neutral, meaning they generate enough revenue to cover the employee costs.
“We had a constrained environment,” the administrator said, “and stewardship matters more now than ever.”
The budget, however, does include a 4% pay raise for county employees and $300,000 for targeted compensation adjustments for Fire and Rescue and the sheriff’s office to account for overtime demands and address pay compression.
It also includes $15 million of an $18.6 million increase in local funding for education that Stafford schools Superintendent Daniel Smith requested when he presented his budget earlier this month.
The supervisors, who are scheduled to approve the budget April 21, seemed to understand Tuesday the grim financial situation.
“I mean, I don’t even know if this is a budget,” Griffis-Widewater District Supervisor Tinesha Allen said. “It’s so skinny. I don’t even know where to trim.”
And board Chairman Deuntay Diggs said he’s concerned about constituents in his George Washington District who won’t be able to handle their taxes going up.
“The thing that I’m thinking about, as we talked about this, is I’m worried about the citizen in Stafford who is on a fixed income, because that’s a portion of my district who can’t bear this increase,” he said.
A public hearing on the budget will be held April 7.
