Supervisors approve septic business for Huntly, hear warnings of budget cuts to come from governor
By James P. Gannon
The Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors gave the go-ahead Monday to a septic system pumping company to locate its business headquarters at the site of the former Dove sawmill on Route 522 in Huntly.
At a brief evening public hearing, the board voted unanimously to allow Christopher Boucher to move his All-Star Septic Systems business from Fauquier County to the 4.6 acre site, which he has contracted to purchase for $289,000. The property is widely viewed as an eyesore, littered with rusting and inoperable machinery, piles of logs and scrap wood, and deteriorating buildings.
There was no public opposition to the permit request at the hearing and comments from supervisors favored the change in the property’s use. “It sounds like you are going to improve the property,” Piedmont District Supervisor Eddie Wayland told Boucher. “I think it is a good use for the property,” agreed Bryant Lee of Hampton District.
In recommending approval for the application last month, the county Planning Commission attached several conditions limiting its use. These limit the number of employees to no more than six, require all vehicles, equipment and materials to be stored inside the existing sawmill building or any new buildings to be built later, and require all sawmill materials to be removed and the site cleaned up by the end of 2009.
In its afternoon session, the supervisors heard warnings that Virginia’s projected $2.9 billion budget shortfall will impact county schools and road projects by next year, and heard a plea from one citizen to cut the county budget next year to provide relief to taxpayers who are struggling in economic hard times.
“It is hard times in Rappahannock County,” Tom Junk of Sperryville told the board. “We have got more foreclosures and people are hurting.” Junk challenged the supervisors to cut the county budget by 1.25%, or about $250,000 next year, to help hold taxes down.
“It would give great relief to families in the county,” said Junk. “If you really want to help families, it is a good goal to shoot for. I hope the board will consider this suggestion seriously.” Junk is head of a local group called Concerned Taxpayers of Rappahannock, though he said he was speaking for himself, not the organization.
The supervisors did not respond directly to Junk’s plea, but later comments from other speakers indicated that it will be even harder than usual next year to cut the county budget because the looming cuts in state aid to localities will shift more of the burden to county taxpayers in the year ahead.
School Superintendent Robert Chappell said he still doesn’t know what cuts in education aid Gov. Tim Kaine may make this fall. Chappell noted that Kaine has said in media interviews that he hopes to avoid reducing state aid to schools in this school year. “What he is saying is that we’re not going to cut (education) this year, we will cut it next year,” Chappell said.
But the superintendent added that he’s not confident there will be no immediate cuts, so “we are still looking for ways to save, in case we need it.” The governor has said that the state’s shortfall in tax revenues–now estimated to produce a nearly $3 billion hole in his biennial budget–will force cuts in nearly all Virginia departments and functions soon.
Those cuts will also affect road projects and repairs in Rappahannock County, predicted David Cubbage of the Virginia Department of Transportation. Cubbage told the supervisors that VDOT spending “will be shrinking by about $125 million a year” and these cuts “will affect all programs” in transportation.
The VDOT official said that the department’s main sources of revenue, taxes on fuel and car sales, are both slumping due to the economy’s decline. “We are going to continue to see reductions in road construction programs,” he said. “We may have to revisit some projects” on the county’s six-year road plan, he added, which would mean deferring some scheduled maintenance and improvement projects to a later time.
County Administrator John McCarthy noted that the governor has asked each agency of state government to prepare budget cuts of 5%, 10% and 15% for his consideration. While there may not be a cut in basic aid to local schools in the current fiscal year ending next June 30, “we are definitely going to get cut next year.”
McCarthy said, however, that Rappahannock County’s budget situation is not as dire as some nearby counties including Fauquier and Culpeper, whose revenues are slumping badly because of the sharp decline in new home building. In building their budgets, those counties count on growing revenues from property taxes on newly built homes, he said, and the housing slump means those anticipated taxes “fell through the floor.”
Rappahannock County gains relatively little new property tax revenue from new homes in any year, McCarthy said, and “I don’t budget for them at all.” The county’s conservative approach to budgeting does not anticipate any new money from new homes, so “we are not losing any real estate tax revenue that we thought we could get.”
Moreover, McCarthy said, the county’s sales tax revenues are holding up well in the face of the developing recession. The county administrator said he has been tracking county retail sales tax receipts closely in recent months and sees no decline. “Our tourism industry is doing much better than we have a right to expect,” he said. “Our retail sales are not being affected” as much as in nearby counties, where retail sales comprise a much larger portion of county tax revenues.
-- James P. Gannon
Write a comment