Amherst leaders see staff cuts under budget projections

A 15-percent reduction in Amherst County department budgets would translate to across-the-board personnel cuts, salary reductions and a thorough slashing of public services, the county administrator says.

At a preliminary budget work session Wednesday afternoon, the county department heads and constitutional officers reported on what the effects would be if faced with such a reduction.

Amherst County Administrator Lee Lintecum had asked county department heads and constitutional officers in December to prepare for 15 percent less in state funds, and Wednesday was the first of many work sessions scheduled as the county tries to stanch next year’s projected losses.

Lintecum did not spell out how much of the county’s budget, set last year at $72.2 million, would be slashed, in part because the final amount of cuts coming down from the state hasn’t been determined.

The cuts that outgoing Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine laid out in December amount to $2.3 billion for the state but that amount is balanced by a $2 billion-per-year increase to the state’s income tax, which incoming Gov. Bob McDonnell and the state’s Republican-led legislature have vowed will not pass.

The question remains how that $2 billion can be made up for without further negative impact to localities. The full effect of Kaine’s proposed cuts alone remains uncertain.

Lintecum madeclear Wednesday that a 15 percent cut in the county’s budget was neither a worst-case-scenario nor an unlikely contingency.

He said at the work session that he plans to sit down with all the county department heads and constitutional officers to go through their individual budgets line by line.

Following this, Lintecum will prepare a draft of the county budget with his proposed cuts, which he will submit to the board for approval in March. He said that one-on-one budget discussions with individual departments were essential to deciphering where the cuts should fall.

“I don’t want anyone to be surprised by the recommendations I make to you all,” he said.

Lintecum added that the budget draft will still be subject to revision once the county receives its final figures from the state.

“We will have to make more changes,” he said. “I hope we do but in a positive manner.”

Amherst Schools Superintendent Bryan Ratliff also spoke at the work session, giving board members a preview of what he and the Amherst School Board will begin to tackle at their meeting tonight.

Ratliff said that county schools face a budget shortfall of at least $2 million next year.Last year, he said, the schools’ budget faced equally damaging losses but was saved by federal stimulus money, an event not likely to reoccur in the coming budget year.

He said that job losses appear inevitable, considering 80 percent of the schools’ budget is personnel.

“The loss is real loss at the state level,” Ratliff said. “We have several plans in place to figure out how it is we meet those deficits. Regardless, it will be devastating.”