County votes to issue request for proposals on Crozet Library

The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ask county staff to prepare a request for proposals for the long-planned Crozet Library.

Completing the project will require the county to move to an equalized tax rate of 76.5 cents per $100 of assessed property value, a decision that the board will make in a couple months. Staff told the supervisors that no money need be allocated for the structure to get an RFP put together.

Discussion of the library arose amid a board work session on the county’s five-year financial plan. During the information session, county staff informed the board that the county’s obligation to the Virginia Retirement System will be significantly more than estimates that were presented last month.

According to County Executive Tom Foley, the total budgetary impact of the county’s VRS obligation will be  $1,425,000 annually, $825,000 more than the previously estimated $600,000.

If the county stays with its current 74.2 cent per $100 tax rate, Foley said, it would need to find $225,000 a year in additional spending cuts. That also means cutting county employee raises.

Even if the tax rate is bumped to the equalized rate, the county will be able to afford to build the Crozet Library, but will fall $200,000 short on its operating costs. Foley also said the VRS revelations also mean adding EMS service to Pantops will be much more difficult.

Board members Ann H. Mallek and Duane Snow said they supported finding alternate ways of funding the library’s operating cost, including moving some of the burden from the county to the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library system itself.

Supervisor Dennis S. Rooker suggested offsetting some of the projected money shortfalls by charging Medicare, Medicaid and insurance companies for EMS calls in the county. Currently, the bill for EMS calls goes to victims.

“We did not fully implement EMS charges. There’s roughly $1 million a year that our county could be gaining by charging Medicare and Medicaid and insurance for EMS services,” Rooker said. “I think we need to take a serious look at adding an ordinance that tells our organizations to join programs that bill Medicare and Medicaid.”

Snow said he is in support of an equalized tax rate if it helps get the library built.

“I’d like to see it go out for bid as soon as possible, but tell everyone that bids on it that if they see ways to reduce the cost and not ruin the integrity of the building, then note it and we’ll come back and look at it,” he said. “I will support it as long as it’s bid as-drawn with included ways to make it cheaper.”

Resistance to the project came from Kenneth C. Boyd, who said he worried that there would be backlash if the library went ahead at the expense of an EMS service on Pantops.

“I’m going to have a tough time explaining to my constituents why they’re losing an EMS service to help pay for a library in Crozet,” he said.

County mulls tourism fund balance

Members of the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau asked the Board of Supervisors to let the organization keep its accumulated fund balance.

The fund balance is currently worth about $770,000, roughly $500,000 more than it should be. The extra money could be split evenly between the city and county and sent back into their respective general funds.

In a resolution presented to the board, the CACVB cited “challenges related to administrative measures and oversight” as the reason for the large balance.

Under normal circumstances, the fund balance is intended to be 15 to 20 percent of the bureau’s annual operating budget. The current balance is nearly three quarters of the budget, county spokeswoman Lee Catlin said.

“Excessive fund balance beyond a reasonable level is taxpayer money that’s not being used as efficiently as possible,” Catlin told the board.

Members of the CACVB, including Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce President Timothy Hulbert, asked the board to let them use the funds to promote tourism over the next few years.

“Yesterday our board approved a resolution, that over the next few years we plan to draw down that fund balance, it should never have gotten that big,” Hulbert said. “The visitors’ bureau has the ware withal to use that money, please don’t take that money from the bureau and put it back into the general fund.”

Hulbert told the board there was no specific plan yet for how the money would be spent, but said one would be ready “in a matter of weeks.” The plan, Hulbert said, would gradually draw the fund down to 15 to 20 percent of the operating budget.

Rooker said a plan for spending the money was more important to him than who gets to spend it.

“To me the main thing here is not who spends the dollars, but that there is a solid plan to spend that balance,” he said. “One thing is certain: that this money isn’t going toward tourism spending sitting in an account somewhere.”

Boyd said he was willing to wait on deciding whether the county would take the money back until a plan for spending it is presented.

“I for one am willing to give them another chance to come back to us with a proposal, because I don’t want to get on a slippery slope,” Boyd said. “Think about the school systems that have millions of dollars in fund balances that carry over every year.”

Mallek was less sympathetic.

“We are providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to this organization every year, and I think we should demand some performance standards,” she said.

The board will decide whether to reclaim the funds after the new year.