Lynchburg City Council members mull new fees for services
No tax increases are under consideration in Lynchburg at the moment, although new fees for services are a possibility.
Lynchburg City Council held a special one-day budget retreat Saturday in order to begin developing priorities for the coming fiscal year and pull together some preliminary budget-balancing ideas.
One of the proposals generated during the eight-hour meeting was imposing new user fees for certain city services, such as leaf collection or bulk refuse pickup, both of which are now free. Other suggestions included: privatizing services, pursuing more regional partnerships and rethinking the traditional five-day workweek.
Council did not discuss the prospect of raising taxes as originally planned. That item was deleted from the agenda by City Manager Kimball Payne, who noted he has already decided not to call for a tax hike in the budget proposal he’s scheduled to present next month.
“I don’t think there’s been any enthusiasm for a tax increase anywhere that I’ve heard,” Payne said.
It’s unusual for City Council to begin its budget deliberations this early in the process. Saturday’s retreat, held at the Lynchburg Public Library, was organized at the city manager’s behest in order to provide him greater guidance as he crafts what will be a painful budget proposal.
The city, facing the likelihood of steep cuts in state aid, is working to reduce its spending by 10 percent in the new fiscal year that will take effect July 1.
Central themes that emerged during council’s retreat included the importance of public safety, infrastructure maintenance and education — although officials noted that prioritizing those areas does not mean they won’t be subjected to cuts.
Prior to the retreat, council was given several specific questions regarding its attitudes about specific points of the budget. Those issues were also discussed at length Saturday, but little consensus formed.
Council did agree that no budget items should be treated as sacred cows, but other key questions, such as what services or programs could be targeted for funding cuts, generated no clear decisions.
Several council members said afterward they enjoyed the ability to engage in a more open-ended, free-form dialogue about the budget.
“I liked the conversation,” Mayor Joan Foster said. “We don’t usually get to do that. It may be helpful for us to start doing this on an annual basis. To just get together and talk about our priorities for the budget.”
Council members said they felt a more focused deliberation would occur when they had a specific budget proposal in hand. The city manager is scheduled to unveil his budget proposal on March 9.
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LynNat, the money that’s used to prop up downtown businesses comes from federal development block grant funds, not local tax revenue.
Block grant money is not available to pay for city services.
So council could decline to expend block grant money upon hotels and restaurants, but doing so would not free up funds to pay for trash collection, etc.
There would still be a budget shortfall that would have to be reconciled by cutting jobs/pay & benefits, eliminating services, deferring maintenance, increaing taxes, imposing fees, or some combination of all these tactics.
Perhaps if City Council would refrain from using tax dollars to fund private businesses downtown (motels, restaurants) there would be no need to charge us for services that have always been free in the past.
I’ve read recently that federal government salaries are 30-40% higher than roughly comparable positions in the private sector. I don’t know how well that carries over to the municipal level but salaries might need to be reduced to match the local prevailing wages. Oh yeah, leaf collection, etc., isn’t free. We already pay a lot in property, sales, and income taxes to cover that stuff.
Answer:
- Because there’s no end to interest groups pleading for more funding for their worthy program;
- Because a signficant part of our political culture is married to the handout mentality;
- Because there’s no recognition that government is limited, i.e. has finite financial resources, and that requires corresponding limits government’s scope;
- Because the housing price bubble led to increasing government revenues which funded willy nilly government exapnsion.
Now the party is over.
I hope Council also takes note of its expansive retirement pension obligations.
Perhaps the larger question is, why does a city of Lynchburg’s size have 1200 employees?
At at time of economic hardship for many of its citizens, the city does not need to raise taxes or fees. Lynchburg’s taxes already place it at a competetive disadvantage in relation to the surrounding couties. As long as the ethos of balancing the budget on the taxpayer’s backs continues, individuals and businesses will vote with their feet, so to speak.
Lynchburg’s government is badly in need of downsizing.
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