Where Is the Surplus Going?
$200,000 to upgrade county computer network
$1,000,000 to replace county computer systems
$1,000,000 to establish base of Housing Trust Fund to ensure future affordable housing
$800,000 to replace county vehicles
$300,000 to staff time and resources to process comprehensive plan amendment applications
$100,000 to automate county human resource system
$550,000 to fix the roof at county government center
$4,840,000 to fund capital construction: swimming pool at Claude Moore Park, Fire & Rescue Training Center, South Riding Public Safety building.
$6,900,000 to reduce the real estate tax rate
The Board of Supervisors has decided what to do with the $15 million surplus from the 2004 budget, and despite the wishes of some Republican supervisors, it's not all going toward reducing the real estate tax rate.
At the end of a contentious discussion, supervisors Lori Waters (R-Broad Run) and Mick Staton (R-Sugarland Run) left the room, refusing to vote. The board decided to devote just $6.9 million of the surplus to tax relief in 2005.
"Politics is about compromise," said Supervisor Jim Clem (R-Leesburg), after a series of unusual votes on each line item for the surplus. One vote found the three non-Republican supervisors voting in a block with Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), who voted against every decision to spend part of the surplus.
That particular vote dealt with funding to handle the comprehensive plan amendments, which surprised the county by arriving in a stack of 20 last September. The county usually receives one or two a year.
County staff requested $750,000 to allot staff time and resources to investigating each comprehensive plan amendment. When Republican supervisors moved to allot only $250,000, the three non-Republicans — supervisors Jim Burton (I-Blue Ridge), Sally Kurtz (D-Catoctin) and Scott York (I-at large) — voted against the motion, as they wanted the original figure allotted.
To their surprise, they succeeded — with Delgaudio's vote against and Waters and Staton outside the room, the move to give money to amendment investigation failed 3-4-2.
The minority quickly realized their mistake and made a new motion to allot $300,000. This passed, but not without some now-typical bickering among the supervisors about the amendments, most of which request higher density housing.
"If you all are going to process these [amendments], you need to process them with adequate funding and a public process," Burton said.
Equating funding with public process, however, didn't make sense to Supervisor Stephen Snow (R-Dulles).
"That's a bunch of bunk," he said.
York demurred. "The public process is having the staff evaluate it and give it to the public," he said. "What we're doing is denying a full opportunity for the staff to do their job."
MEMBERS of the public had requested the board at several recent meetings to set apart some of the surplus for the impending legal battle with the State Corporation Commission over Dominion Virginia Power's proposed 230 kilovolt transmission line to western Loudoun. When it was noted that the county has a $2 million legal fund set aside already, however, supervisors decided to earmark $250,000 of that for legal fees rather than from the surplus.