Staunton Council adopts $94.2M budget, 90-cent real estate tax rate

By a 5-2 vote, the Staunton City Council adopted on Thursday a $94.2 million fiscal year 2010 budget with a 90-cent real estate tax rate.

At the regular meeting in Staunton’s City Hall, Mayor Lacy King and Councilman Dickie Bell voted against the budget, both wishing to see a lower tax rate.

King said he realized the city could not equalize the tax rate because of an uncertain future with continued declines in state revenue – including a 21 percent drop in state tax revenue for April – that could force the city to cut its 2010 budget later this year. However, he believed the city could have cut the $177,629 necessary to reduce the tax rate from 90 cents per $100 of assessed value to 89 cents.

“I felt like we could have found one cent on the tax rate,” King said.

The tax rate represents a 3.4 percent tax increase over the revenue-neutral rate of 87-cents. The real estate tax bill on a $225,000 home will increase by $67.50 to $2,025 yearly.

Bell wanted an equalized tax rate of 87 cents to “ease the burden” on residents. That rate would have necessitated further cuts of an additional $532,887. He said he could not support a 90-cent rate.

“By maintaining this tax rate, we continue to damage or even lose our competitive position among the municipalities,” Bell said prior to the vote.

Vice Mayor Dave Metz, though voting for the budget, said he was not happy with it. The city had to absorb cuts he felt it should not have had to make. Staffing cuts in city departments and the school division, Metz said, did not represent an investment in the city or the students in its schools.

“We’re going to be taking more depreciation expense than we’re spending in investment,” Metz said. “The net value of the city, I think, is being decreased, and I find that very troubling to sit up here as a member of council charged with taking care of this city and to watch the value of the city essentially slip through my fingers. And yet I don’t see how we have much of an option on that.”

Councilwoman Andrea Oakes said a tax rate lower than 90 cents would be detrimental to residents and services “would be lacking.” The approved budget will help, she said, to maintain the school division, as well as the police and fire departments.

“I feel that the tax rate set at 90 [cents] will help us maintain the services that we have come accustomed to in the city,” Oakes said.