The late Hunter Andrews used to tell state senators in an election year to welcome the opportunity “to be refreshed by the will of the people.” I thought about that when I drove back to Richmond on Thursday night from Cartersville, where I witnessed a lively Town Hall meeting about a likely increase in real estate taxes to deal with a budget shortfall of more than $2 million. It was the third Town Hall held on the subject in about a week, and Sheriff Darrell Hodges said the earlier meetings were a lot rougher.

Jeremy Slayton and I have a package of stories about the budget fallout in rural Virginia that is scheduled to run in Sunday’s print edition of the Times-Dispatch. Jeremy looks at small school systems, which are taking a big hit from cuts in state aid for education. I contribute a short sidebar about the resentment among local officials over having to contemplate significant tax increases to make up for cuts in state aid for services that the state requires them to provide.

The situation is particularly gruesome in Cumberland, where residents are proud of the progress they’ve made in improving a rural school system that is among 21 in the state that meets both state accreditation requirements and federal standards for annual improvement in educational quality. Part of that pride is a new school complex for middle and high school students, replacing old buildings that in one case had been condemned as unsafe.

But the new complex is a big part of the problem, too. Debt service on the project is coming due in the next fiscal year, accounting for about $2.5 million of the county’s overall debt service of $4 million.
Cumberland has been counting on revenue from the new regional landfill that Republic Services was supposed to open last year. Now, the landfill might not open until next year, taking a big chunk of tax revenue away that was supposed to cover the debt on the new complex.

The school system already has cut $1.6 million out of its budget for the next school year, eliminating about 13 percent of its work force. Superintendent Jim Thornton says the county could face an additional $800,000 in cuts to make up the $2 billion car tax hole in the state budget. State legislators say it shouldn’t be nearly that bad because of a proposal to hold localities harmless from losses from a change in the funding formula, and local savings expected from steep reductions in contributions to teacher pension plans. We’‘ll see.

In the meantime, the school system and county government are looking at a possible increase in the real estate tax rate of up to 26 cents per $100 just to pay the debt service, keep local funding for schools level, and enable the sheriff’s department to continue providing law enforcement coverage around the clock (which it began doing less than two years ago). To make matters even tougher for taxpayers, this is the year that Cumberland reassessed its property values for the first time in four years, resulting in an overall increase of 12 percent.

Taxpayers are yelling, but parents are worried about what will happen to their schools if the county doesn’t find the money.

Sometimes, it pays to get out of Richmond and be refreshed by the voice of the people, and not just in election years.

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