County affirms tax rate at 74.2 cents

After months of debating whether to raise taxes and arguing about which services to slice, it took the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors eight minutes Wednesday to unanimously approve a $303.7 million budget for fiscal 2010 and set the real-estate tax rate at 74.2 cents per $100 of assessed value.

“It’s almost an anticlimax when we take the vote after months of working on this,” Supervi-sor Sally H. Thomas said.

Supervisors called it the most challenging budget cycle of their careers, and some local officials said that the county had slumped into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression — or at least since the late 1970s.

A decline in assessed home values and drop in sales tax revenue had the county considering possible tax hikes and service cuts early in the year. But after the bulk of residents demanded the county hold the line on taxes, the board agreed to a real-estate tax rate that would allow the average homeowner to pay roughly the same taxes in 2009 as under the 71-cent rate in 2008.

The fiscal 2010 budget is about $30 million smaller than the budget approved last year, which means there will be a slew of service cuts.

The county plans to freeze 55 employee positions by the end of fiscal 2010, for example, and halve funding for its Acquisition of Conservation Easements program. Department funding cuts were made in local government operations, and employee pay increases were cut nearly across the board.

Supervisor Lindsay G. Dorrier Jr. said the board molded the budget by cooperating closely with the public.

The budget woes have the county delaying or axing major infrastructure projects, reducing transportation funds and forcing the county to take on some of the same tasks as in past years with fewer employees. The five-year budget for infrastructure projects is about $100 million lighter than a plan approved a year ago. Work at libraries and parks, for example, will be delayed or ditched all together.

The approval of the budget comes with major worries from supervisors, who’ve largely said that funding for infrastructure, police, social services and other services have been cut to the bone. Some fear that if the economy worsens it could mean that funding for core services could be sacrificied. Supervisors have also expressed disappointment that by cutting funding for infrastructure projects, they’ve missed an opportunity to finance building projects at a time when construction costs are low.

In December, supervisors toyed with the possibility of raising the real-estate tax rate to 77 cents, setting aside revenue collected from 2.5 cents of the rate for a “contingency fund.” Board Chairman David L. Slutzky later said that he would have favored a tax rate of more than 80 cents in 2008. However, the overwhelming majority of constituents opposed tax increases, Slutzky said, which led him to call for a 74.2-cent rate.

Supervisors also voted Wednesday to keep the personal property tax rate at $4.28 per $100 of assessed value.