CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The $724 million balanced operating budget proposed to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors does not call for a change in the tax rate for the next fiscal year, County Executive Jeff Richardson told the board during a presentation Wednesday.

Richardson said, a year after raising the county tax rate by 4-cents, he did not want to do that again, “even though our obligations continue to mount.”

During his 44-slide presentation, Richardson explained where money the county takes in actually goes. He said 52 cents of every dollar the county takes in goes to fund education, 14 cents goes for public safety, 11 for community development, 10 for government operations, 8 for health and welfare funds, 3 for city revenue sharing payments and 2 for parks and recreation.

The full budget, combining both the $512 million operating budget and the capital budget, is $724 million. The county’s personal property tax rate is $4.28 for every $100 and its real property tax rate is $0.894 per every $100.

The Board is expected to vote on the budget on April 22, following a series of public hearings and work sessions to review it.

Richardson said that for every dollar the county takes in from residential and multi-family properties, it spends $1.31 to service those properties and residents. He said that cost is offset by commercial/industry and agricultural properties. He said commercial/industry only use 32 cents of every dollar they pay the county.

Richardson told the Board, “We will run out of money before we run out of opportunities and problems.” He said, the county is “trying to do the most we can with what we have.”

Richardson noted the addition of the new Home Depot at the former Fashion Square Mall, and the incoming AztraZeneca plant as commercial properties that will help the county going forward.

“As far as AstraZeneca coming to our county, it’s the largest economic development announcement certainly in decades for this community,” he said.  “The significant capital industry investment would just be unbelievable and when we look at fiscal years 29, 30, and 31, when we look out three to five years, it changes the landscape of how our revenues grow versus our obligations and our expenses and it’s going to relieve us to some degree for the first time in a long time.”

“We’re on our way to strengthening our tax base and diversifying our economy,” he said.

Richardson said the new budget will fund three new police officers for the ACPD. He said a FEMA grant the county is pursuing could fund four new positions for Albemarle Fire Rescue.

“We’ve had a strategy with public safety first to conduct staffing studies to see long-term what do we need to be able to deal with increased calls for service in both police and fire,” he said. “So we’ve got additional positions next year that are recommended in the police department’s budget to address an increase for calls. I think we’ve seen a 19% increase in calls for service over the last three years.” And so, we want to be responsive to the community on the public safety needs.”