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Save This PageCiting decreasing revenue growth and increasing demands based on population, Chesterfield County's administrator has proposed a $1.3 billion operating budget for fiscal 2009.
It is based on continuing the current tax rate -- 97 cents per $100 of assessed value.
The proposal includes a $759 million general operating fund -- a 3.6 percent increase over the current $733 million. That's a marked decline from the average 10 percent rate of increase over the past three years.
"In all the years I have worked in local government, which goes back to 1979, we have never seen as difficult a financial outlook as we see today," County Administrator James J.L. Stegmaier said yesterday.
Overall, the proposal is $126.6 million higher than the current spending plan. Budget Director Allan Carmody says half of that increase comes from the $63 million capital-improvements plan, which includes wastewater treatment plant upgrades.
County schools would get 50.3 percent, or $646.7 million, out of the total proposed budget.
Compared to this year's budget, the increase provides:
The plan proposes funding for 26 new employees, including eight for police and five for the fire department. That is down from the annual increase of about 90 new positions over the past three years.
Stegmaier said the fiscal 2009 plan would focus on employee recruitment and retention, high-quality public safety and education and economic development.
"In a sense what we're facing is a perfect storm," he said, referring to stiff salary competition from the private sector and stagnant revenues. "What this budget is going to do is make us more efficient -- we have to be -- but you're also going to see constraints on programs."
The proposed budget will be presented to the Board of Supervisors on Monday at 6 p.m. at a work session. Budget presentations from the School Board and constitutional officers are also scheduled for that night.
A public hearing on the budget will be held April 2, and a vote to adopt it will take place April 9.
Stegmaier's proposed plan does not reflect the effects of the $2 billion shortfall the state is wrestling with, a factor that could radically change the plan, he said.
"We don't know what state funding for local governments is going to look like for next year," Stegmaier said.
"Unless the direction of the economy changes between now and this time next year, the 2010 budget is going to be tighter than anything we've even imagined," he warned.
Contact Wesley P. Hester at (804) 649-6976 or whester@timesdispatch.com.
