The Patrick County Board of Supervisors had a first look at the proposed spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year last week, and scheduled a public hearing for Monday, May 13 to hear public input.
The overall proposal is $74,803,977, and reflects an increase of seven percent, or $4,877,459, over the current fiscal year. It includes more than 6 new positions, and a pay hike for employees.
Under the proposed fiscal year 2024-25 budget, general government administration would receive $2,516,572 million, the judicial administration will get $1,541,767 million, public safety would get $10,878,398 including more than $4 million for law enforcement, $2.6 million for the jail, and $1.1 for the Quick Response Vehicle/Ambulance.
Public Works would receive $1,883,239, with the Transfer Station getting the largest portion of the funds at $885,091. Health & Welfare would receive $5,053,336 and Parks & Recreation, $331,315.
Community development, which includes contributions to agencies, economic development, tourism, and other offices, would receive $1,665,733. The nondepartmental category has an allocation of $1,592,153, and education will receive $9,109,217.
County Administrator Beth Simms said 43-percent of tax dollars will go towards education with 27 percent allocated for public safety. Public works, government administration, health & welfare would receive six percent each, with 5-percent for community development, 3-percent for nondepartmental and 1-percent for Parks & Recreation.
“This is pretty standard across the state, due to the LCI and other things in Virginia that local governments have to participate with in state programs,” she said.
Simms said the proposed budget is the result of more than three months of work. It was developed with the intention of what is best for the county, both now and in the future.
“The original budget requests were approximately $1.5 million over projected revenues, but staff with input from the board present a balanced budget with no tax increases,” she said.
During the budget process, Simms said she and county staff working on the proposal first looked at the local government’s obligations expenses in Virginia.
“As we all know, we have the local composite index (LCI), other things that local governments in Virginia are responsible for. These expenses are included that are associated with public education, human services, jail operations, constitutional offices, courts, the cost to conduct our annual audit, etcetera,” she said.
Simms said staff then looked at fixed costs like utilities, insurance, fuel, and others before examining the costs associated with operating the established local government services like the cost to execute building inspections, run the finance department, Animal Control, maintain the buildings and facilities, and Emergency Medical Services (EMS).
The most notable highlights in the proposed FY25 budget look to address deferred issues like not having staff support for Planning Commission or land-use issues, the need for Patrick County to do capital improvement planning, salary adjustment, rising costs of electricity, health insurance, “and public safety and health and welfare needs that couldn’t be funded in previous years.”
“A local government’s budget should be in line with their strategic priorities, capital improvement plan, and comprehensive plan. While these are either in the process of being updated or developed, we relied on the organization’s’ identified needs and verbal feedback from the board of supervisors to base our budget strategy,” she said.
Priorities communicated from the board include not increasing taxes, addressing the vulnerability of rural localities EMS services, employee retention including equity and pay, and better tracking and attention to equipment maintenance.
Simms said one highlight is the budget includes a proposed $39,224 to be placed in the county’s contingency fund.
“The budget includes added staff capacity to fill basic local government operation gaps including planning commission/land use staff support, communications, and addressing deferred maintenance needs and capital planning” she said.
The budget also includes cost of living or market-based salary adjustments.
She added Patrick County salaries were frozen from 2017-2020.
“It’s generally accepted that when salaries are frozen for one year it takes twice that to catch up. So, we’re hoping that by 2028 we’ll be on an even playing field with our neighbors,” she said.
Simms noted governments are starting to find that cost of living adjustments, which are common practice in local governments, do not have the same financial impact for all employees.
“A three percent raise for a maintenance worker versus a three percent raise for a department head who’s been here for a couple decades are drastically different. That’s where we see these huge gaps in pay, and what we’re trying to remedy,” she said, and added that it is essential for an organization to survey the market occasionally to ensure employees are being compensated appropriately for the jobs they perform.
“Patrick County’s recent compensation study recommended a total increase of $239,500. The proposed fiscal year ‘25 budget includes just a total increase of $101,834 for these employees,” she said. “Averaged together, this is an average increase of 5.9 percent for the positions surveyed. Fiscal year ’25 salary adjustments are still below the target market rate, but are in line with Patrick County’s established salary scales.”
Simms said making the recommended salary adjustments is necessary to retain qualified staff.
Additional proposed budget highlights are increased funding for public safety, including law enforcement, emergency services, and contributions to volunteer fire department and rescue squads, health and welfare, a real estate assessment, and other items.
However, many board members said they felt additional work on the budget was needed.
Clayton Kendrick, of the Mayo River District, said he feels the board needs to work on the budget further.
“I’ve got quite a bit” of concerns. “I think there’s other places, I know there’s been some contract that I’ve got some disputes on. There’s a lot of things on this page right here that the one budget committee I was in, we decided to take off,” he said.
Kendrick said one issue he had discussed with Simms, that still shows on the proposed budget, relates to a contract on the HVAC maintenance, “that we could save several thousand dollars with going with the low bidder instead of the high bidder.”
Other issues like an ambulance and a loader at the Transfer Station, Kendrick said the budget committee decided not to go with it.
Simms said the ambulance was not on the budget. Kendrick said it was on his copy, and “some of this stuff,” he had not seen until the meeting. As one example, he cited the “replacement of essential equipment -Ambulance. This is on one of these supplemental sheets you’ve given me. I may not be reading it right, but we haven’t actually with the whole committee, haven’t been in but one meeting.”
Steve Marshall, of the Blue Ridge District, said one of his concerns is regarding the jail trustees being paid out of various department accounts for lunch.
“I think that should be charged back to the Sheriff’s Department Fund. People pay their taxes for those prisoner meals and that’s where it should be coming from,” he said.
Kendrick asked if trustee inmates are paid a salary for labor.
“Part of their payment is their lunch,” Simms said.
Jonathan Wood, of the Peters Creek District, said a lot of counties pay the trustees a small amount per hour like $0.50-0.75 cents range.
“We’re not paying them anything, which I agree. We don’t need to give them a job, they’re incarcerated for a reason,” he said.
Wood said he had a few trustees come repaint his agricultural shop at Patrick County High School (PCHS) and he paid them out of his own pocket with food and soda.
“I don’t think we should necessarily cut it off completely, I just think we need to be frugal with how we do it and when we do it,” he said.
Kendrick said he noticed the proposed budget also includes an added 6.5 new positions.
“Every year it looks like that keeps happening. The population of the county drops every consensus, but the government keeps growing and it’s hard for the common folks to pay for all of that. Are these absolutely necessary? I mean, is there nothing we can do without,” he said.
Simms said the 6.5 new positions include four paid EMS staff, “due to our paid EMS having to run more calls because of the decline of volunteer squads.”
Another position is for planning staff.
“As mentioned before, we’re the only local government that I know of that doesn’t have planning staff. We have a planning commission that is accepting applications, and you all are making land use decisions, and we don’t have any staff guidance on that. We couldn’t make a full salary work on that, so the proposal was to contract for that,” she said.
The other position is capital planning. Simms said weekly, if not daily, she has a department head coming to her about something being broken.
“There have been things that have come up in the last week, significant items that have come up in the last week that are not in this year’s budget that we’re going to have to try and find some way to fund or offices are going to have to close early,” she said.
A position opened up in the maintenance department, and Simms said the staff is looking at elevating a position to have someone help keep track.
“Of course, they’ll jump in and help when needed, but they’ll be administrative to help things that we’ve mentioned – capital improvement planning, planning for solid waste, what’s next for solid waste, things like that,” she said.
Simms said the county would also elevate a part-time tourism position to full-time, which would help with tourism, economic development, and marketing.
Kedrick said he understands the need for salary adjustments because some make less than $30,000 a year. But he is unsure about the proposed percentages.
“You give him three percent, what’s that $900 dollars? Then you got somebody making $100,000 or more and you give them three percent and that’s $3,000, and every year that gap keeps getting farther. Why not drop it down? The higher income, drop that down one percent and add it on the lower,” he said.
One reason the three percent across the board was recommended is because it’s what state employees will get, Simms said.
“It makes it kind of difficult if a state employee gets a three percent no matter what their salary is, and then a county employee, whatever threshold there is,” makes it difficult to explain “you don’t get a raise because you make over this amount and you are 100 percent county funded,” she said.
On the budget sheet, Kedrick said it looked like some of the raises were around 19 percent.
Simms said the salary increases of 18 percent are for the positions that are the most inequitable in the county’s salary study.
“There were recommendations of $20,000 salary increases. Of course we couldn’t do that, but we adjusted, and we lowered that, but there are some positions that have an 18 percent increase just due to how far off from the market rate it was,” Simms said.
The Finance Officer position will receive the 19 percent raise increase for a total salary of $73,224.
The Commissioner of Revenue role will receive a six percent salary decrease, or $7,447. Compensation for election officials and early voting officials will decrease by 22 percent, or $6,000, and 33 percent, or $4,000, respectively.
The salary for the Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney will increase by 29 percent for a new total of $110,266. The Sheriff would see a 19 percent salary increase for a total salary of $131,540.
Volunteer fire departments are set to receive a 50 percent, or $76,860, contribution increase for a new total of $230,535. Volunteer ambulances and rescue squads are expected to see an increase in contributions of nine percent for a new total of $105,312.
In other matters, the board:
*Tabled its decision on the health insurance renewal until it has enough information to make an informed decision.
*Scheduled a public hearing for the May 13 meeting regarding the Children’s Services Act (CSA) budget amendment greater than one percent and the Patrick County School Board distribution of $600,000.
*Appointed Jane Hartwell as the at large member of the Department of Social Services (DSS) Advisory Board.
*Appointed Marshall to the DSS Advisory Board as the board’s representative.
Brandon Simmons, chairman, and of the Dan River District, did not attend the meeting.
