Living within mean times

As waves crash and the ship rolls, Waynesboro city staff heave crates over the rails and two councilwomen respond in kind, tossing coins into the sea, drawing applause, much of it their own, amid thunderclaps. Now to the real business: whether to cut $550,000 more from city spending or impose a tax increase with major local employers dispatching workers to the plank as the storm roars.

It would figure that the council’s great ideological divide now would be seen plainly, having been scarcely visible since the miasma faded over former City Manager Doug Walker’s forced resignation last spring. Having already slashed more than $2 million in spending from last fiscal year’s original budget, the council must determine whether it will cut still more to accommodate a reduction in the tax rate offsetting a reassessment increase.

The rate now is 70 cents per $100 of assessed value, among the state’s lowest. If that rate remains in place and the average 5-percent reassessment increase is applied, the owner of a home previously valued at the median of roughly $200,000 two years ago would see tax bills increase from $1,400 to $1,470. Others owning homes previously valued at the same amount could receive bills for hundreds of dollars more because of reassessments higher than the average.

Reducing the tax rate by 3 cents per $100 would prevent an overall increase in the burden on taxpayers, but it would also create a gap in the bare-bones budget City Manager Mike Hamp presented last week to the council. That plan includes two-day furloughs for city workers, pay and benefits cuts and the freezing or elimination of more than a dozen jobs.

Councilwomen Nancy Dowdy and Lorie Smith volunteered to aid the cause by forgoing their $5,100 annual salaries. This is commendable piffle, the effect being to lighten weight by plucking mites from the back of the budget beast. Vice Mayor Frank Lucente says his salary goes to charity. Councilman Bruce Allen is typically silent, while Mayor Tim Williams muses over the prospects of a raise.

Bravo to Dowdy and Smith, but what of the real quandary? Struggling to bridge frayed ends, should the council accept additional revenues by leaving the tax rate untouched, allowing property owners to pay more with some having absorbed layoffs at Invista and Mohawk Industries, among others? Or should the council drop the rate by 3 cents, pick up the axe and go to work on chopping another $550,000 from next fiscal year’s budget?

Conservative bloc mates Lucente, Allen and Williams would be expected to lean toward the latter. But Williams is unsure. After Lucente suggested and Waynesboro Schools Superintendent Robin Crowder initially rebuffed a deal to defer half of $1.2 million in city money for the division, Williams hedged: “I can’t say that I’m in favor of a tax equalization rate, or against it.” All right, then.

Like many of the people who live and work here, the council is confronted by choices that sting. It should be remembered that by leaving the current tax rate in place the council would effectively be approving a tax increase. This is why state law includes a windfall provision that requires government to advertise a reduced rate, compelling a vote, rather than simply allowing the extra money to flow from taxpayers’ wallets.

Now is no time for a tax increase. Both factions were elected to make decisions when neither alternative soothes. Dispense with puffery, roll up the sleeves and pick up budgetary blades. When the mean times end, taxpayers may be able to endure a city windfall. In the meantime, there are means within which to live.