On April 28th, the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors adopted the Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21) budget – which was constrained due to the Board’s April 7th decision to adopt the equalized tax rate of $.8094. All FY21 budget documents can be found here.
The County Administrator’s original recommended budget included a tax rate of $.8797. Considering the economic downturn and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Courtland Supervisor David Ross and Chancellor Supervisor Tim McLaughlin requested that County staff present a budget scenario at the equalized tax rate. Although scaling back the County Administrator’s budget was sensible, the truth is at least three supervisors appeared to favor an equalized tax rate prior to any reported COVID-19 impacts. They must believe that an equalized tax rate supported budget can maintain levels of service in the County - but you will never hear them say those exact words.
The equalized tax rate is advocated to protect the most vulnerable in the community from out-of-control spending. However, those same individuals are going to disproportionately bear the brunt of County services being reduced – making it harder for them to be successful. The County Administrator was clear during his presentation that levels of service in Spotsylvania County will decline in the upcoming FY21 due to budgetary cuts needed to accommodate the equalized tax rate. Additionally, the FY21 budget creates an immediate deficit in next year’s budget that probably will take multiple years to recover from without the Board of Supervisors implementing reasonable tax increases or abandoning fiscal policies that contributed to higher credit agency ratings.
It seems clear that a notable part of our community believes strongly – including several supervisors – that the County budget is filled with wasteful initiatives and inefficiencies and that the County could operate at the equalized tax rate or lower if these were addressed. However, during this past budget cycle, no supervisor stated in any clear terms which line items should be cut – the Board seemed to delegate this job to our County staff. Additionally, there was not one supervisor during the entire budget process that explicitly stated that the County Administrator’s recommended budget was wasteful. In FY21, the community will have a good test case on this equalized tax rate theory – as $17 million of expenses were removed from the County Administrator’s recommended budget – funds that he believed were necessary to maintain the current level of services. Some sacrifices should be expected with the ongoing pandemic, but we must not forget that some of our leaders would have supported an equalized tax rate even without the economic concerns caused by COVID-19.
The Board of Supervisors must lead with a plan or vision for the future of Spotsylvania. Often, the Board reacts and responds to incoming obstacles in a piecemeal manner rather than working toward an agreed upon end state. The Board sets the tone for the County. No other citizens have the access or pulpit to influence and impact the tone radiated in our community. When the Board lacks vision or demonstrates closed minded approaches to governing it impacts the entire community, and more importantly the perception of the community.
The true failure was not adopting an equalized tax rate in FY21, it was failing to invest enough and fortifying our community during the strong economic times – to make up for reducing services during the 2008 economic recession and accommodate our increasing population that demand core services. This governing philosophy ran into challenges in FY21 when the County Administrator presented a close to 8 penny tax increase in an assessment year that saw an average 9 percent increase in property values. Spotsylvania did not take advantage of the positive economic trend of previous years, and now probably will bear greater costs because of it. It did not have to be this way.
As an example, as early as April 2016, the Spotsylvania Career Firefighters Association briefed the Board of Supervisors multiple times expressing concerns about Fire Rescue and Emergency Management (FREM) compensation. These warnings were not taken seriously enough until the fall of 2019 when the Board finally supported a comprehensive public safety compensation plan – which required nearly $11 million dollars to be identified in less than a year. How many Sheriff and FREM personnel did we unnecessarily lose, after expending hundreds of thousands of dollars to train them between 2016 and 2019? How much unnecessary overtime was paid over that same period due to staffing issues? If the warning signs were taken more seriously, it would have been much more manageable to implement such a compensation plan over several years – which is what the Spotsylvania Career Firefighters Association was requesting 4 years ago.
To the Board of Supervisors credit, they did support the public safety compensation plan almost in its entirety in the FY21 budget. However, due to the circumstances caused by COVID-19, that – much deserved support – unfortunately, came at the expense of the rest of the County. Too often the end result of Spotsylvania’s budget process creates these winner and loser scenarios. Are we to believe that only our Public Safety personnel were so vastly underpaid in the market? Or are all County employees – Schools included – experiencing similar pay disparities between neighboring localities? Over time I have heard each supervisor praise our County employees for their dedication to the community. At the same time, I suspect each Department Head must be eerily nervous to advocate for competetive pay for their workers. To do so risks not only the wrath of supervisors and community members, but also your job security by pointing out inconvenient facts. These Departments don’t have Associations to advocate for them – they place their faith each day in the tone and vision of the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors – it’s up to the community to judge whether that faith is misplaced or not.