The info below is from a speech by Governor McDonnell comparing Northern Virginia economy to our Southern Virginia area.,
The south and southwest areas of the state have not been as lucky. These areas have reeled in economic decline for more than decade, as textile, tobacco and furniture makers have closed up shop, sending tens of thousands of blue collar workers into the unemployment line.
“Some places are growing, some are not,”
Also, this is a reference to Mr. Browns tour of Southern Va.
state Secretary of Finance Ric Brown said. “Go to a place like Danville, a place that’s got high unemployment; you will find that its traditional economic base — textiles, furniture — left in recession and hasn’t come back and it isn’t coming back.”
The south and southwest areas of the state have not been as lucky. These areas have reeled in economic decline for more than decade, as textile, tobacco and furniture makers have closed up shop, sending tens of thousands of blue collar workers into the unemployment line.
“Some places are growing, some are not,”
Also, this is a reference to Mr. Browns tour of Southern Va.
state Secretary of Finance Ric Brown said. “Go to a place like Danville, a place that’s got high unemployment; you will find that its traditional economic base — textiles, furniture — left in recession and hasn’t come back and it isn’t coming back.”
Roger T Hayden Could it be that Southern Virginia has been in a state of decline from loss of Tobacco,Furniture and Textile manufacturing? Thereby, went the jobs. People in rural and towns both are struggling to make ends meet, yet the governments think we can pay more taxes and fees. First we must get our heads out of the sand or wherever it has been and realize; we have problems that must be addressed! click here > http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/article.cfm?ID=32802
Tax Payers of Patrick County Take Notice
Patrick official concerned about county budget by Tom Joyce
Staff Reporter 22 hrs ago | 250 views | 0 | 1 | |
Roger T. Hayden
CLAUDVILLE, Va. — A member of the Patrick County Board of Supervisors is concerned about the direction the county’s annual budget is heading.
“I am opposed to the fiscal year 2013 budget as currently presented by the departments and the administration,” was the word from Roger T. Hayden, who represents the Dan River District that includes the communities of Ararat, Willis Gap and Claudville.
“It isn’t a surplus budget as in past years, or a break-even budget,” Hayden explained. “It’s a deficit budget balanced by drawing down $544,000 from county cash reserves and increasing funding to the school board.”
Hayden said in a telephone interview Tuesday night that he is concerned about depleting reserve funds — as well as putting the county on a shaky financial course, rather than operating within its means. “Taxpayers deserve a budget that reflects available revenue and maintains our reserve funds.”
Normally, such budget concerns don’t surface until later in the spring. But under a “split tax” procedure implemented about two years ago in which Patrick property owners are billed twice yearly, the county’s real estate tax rate must be set by the end of March. This allows the first portion of the bills to go out and the revenues collected by June 1.
The supervisors recently voted 4-1 to advertise a county budget that maintains the real estate tax rate at 48 cents per $100 of assessed valuation and the personal property rate at $1.71. Hayden was the lone dissenter.
He pointed out that the Fiscal Year 2012 budget was to have reflected a 5-percent reduction in county appropriations for all departments, thereby producing a savings of $410,147.
“This did not materialize due to salary increases,” according to Hayden. “Actual revenue that went into the contingency reserve was only $73,421,and is thereby impacting negatively the Fiscal Year 2013 budget.”
A deficit of $544,000 was projected for the next fiscal year that begins on July 1, based on the present year’s appropriation level for the schools.
“However, preliminary information from the school board indicates that Fiscal Year 2012 funding is insufficient and must now be exceeded by $1.5 million in the Fiscal Year 2013 budget,” Hayden continued. That adds up to an anticipated deficit of more than $2 million.
Public schools represent the largest spending category for county government.
Hayden was unsure Tuesday night why the school board is requesting such a large increase, other than to meet operating expenses. “The school system still hasn’t given us a budget, so we don’t know exactly what they are going to do.”
However, Hayden is concerned about the bad precedent he thinks will be set if reserve funds are relied on to balance the county spending plan. “Spending is projected to continue its negative affects into future budgets,” he stated.
To put the situation into perspective, the Dan River District supervisor pointed to the impact the extra spending would have on taxation if reserve funds weren’t targeted.
“If we didn’t deplete cash reserves, then covering the Fiscal Year 2013 $2,044,000 deficit would require a 12-cent increase to the present 48 cents per $100 real estate levy. That would be a 25-percent increase after a 50-percent increase in 2009 and would require only three votes of the five supervisors.”
With unemployment high, more Patrick residents living in poverty and the population composed of many older residents on fixed incomes, Hayden doesn’t believe taxpayers should be put at risk in such a way.
“We’ve got older people who inherited the land and basically they’re losing their properties now,” Hayden said. “There’s several that’s been foreclosed on.”
He added, “We’ve got problems here.”
Hayden doesn’t think the taxpayers are willing to or financially solvent enough to absorb increases in real estate and/or personal property taxes which could result from the present state of affairs. Any such hikes would “be with us from now on,” he believes.
“I just want the taxpayers to know,” the first-term supervisor said of his reasons for criticizing the budget situation.
Patrick residents can make their opinions known on the matter at a public hearing scheduled next Thursday (March 29) in Stuart. It will be held at 6 p.m. in the third-floor boardroom of the county administration building.
In the meantime, the supervisors are trying to tweak the spending plan where possible. “We’re working to reduce the county budget,” Hayden said.
Reach Tom Joyce at 719-1924 or tjoyce@heartlandpublications.com.
Read more: Mount Airy News - Patrick official concerned about county budget
Staff Reporter 22 hrs ago | 250 views | 0 | 1 | |
Roger T. Hayden
CLAUDVILLE, Va. — A member of the Patrick County Board of Supervisors is concerned about the direction the county’s annual budget is heading.
“I am opposed to the fiscal year 2013 budget as currently presented by the departments and the administration,” was the word from Roger T. Hayden, who represents the Dan River District that includes the communities of Ararat, Willis Gap and Claudville.
“It isn’t a surplus budget as in past years, or a break-even budget,” Hayden explained. “It’s a deficit budget balanced by drawing down $544,000 from county cash reserves and increasing funding to the school board.”
Hayden said in a telephone interview Tuesday night that he is concerned about depleting reserve funds — as well as putting the county on a shaky financial course, rather than operating within its means. “Taxpayers deserve a budget that reflects available revenue and maintains our reserve funds.”
Normally, such budget concerns don’t surface until later in the spring. But under a “split tax” procedure implemented about two years ago in which Patrick property owners are billed twice yearly, the county’s real estate tax rate must be set by the end of March. This allows the first portion of the bills to go out and the revenues collected by June 1.
The supervisors recently voted 4-1 to advertise a county budget that maintains the real estate tax rate at 48 cents per $100 of assessed valuation and the personal property rate at $1.71. Hayden was the lone dissenter.
He pointed out that the Fiscal Year 2012 budget was to have reflected a 5-percent reduction in county appropriations for all departments, thereby producing a savings of $410,147.
“This did not materialize due to salary increases,” according to Hayden. “Actual revenue that went into the contingency reserve was only $73,421,and is thereby impacting negatively the Fiscal Year 2013 budget.”
A deficit of $544,000 was projected for the next fiscal year that begins on July 1, based on the present year’s appropriation level for the schools.
“However, preliminary information from the school board indicates that Fiscal Year 2012 funding is insufficient and must now be exceeded by $1.5 million in the Fiscal Year 2013 budget,” Hayden continued. That adds up to an anticipated deficit of more than $2 million.
Public schools represent the largest spending category for county government.
Hayden was unsure Tuesday night why the school board is requesting such a large increase, other than to meet operating expenses. “The school system still hasn’t given us a budget, so we don’t know exactly what they are going to do.”
However, Hayden is concerned about the bad precedent he thinks will be set if reserve funds are relied on to balance the county spending plan. “Spending is projected to continue its negative affects into future budgets,” he stated.
To put the situation into perspective, the Dan River District supervisor pointed to the impact the extra spending would have on taxation if reserve funds weren’t targeted.
“If we didn’t deplete cash reserves, then covering the Fiscal Year 2013 $2,044,000 deficit would require a 12-cent increase to the present 48 cents per $100 real estate levy. That would be a 25-percent increase after a 50-percent increase in 2009 and would require only three votes of the five supervisors.”
With unemployment high, more Patrick residents living in poverty and the population composed of many older residents on fixed incomes, Hayden doesn’t believe taxpayers should be put at risk in such a way.
“We’ve got older people who inherited the land and basically they’re losing their properties now,” Hayden said. “There’s several that’s been foreclosed on.”
He added, “We’ve got problems here.”
Hayden doesn’t think the taxpayers are willing to or financially solvent enough to absorb increases in real estate and/or personal property taxes which could result from the present state of affairs. Any such hikes would “be with us from now on,” he believes.
“I just want the taxpayers to know,” the first-term supervisor said of his reasons for criticizing the budget situation.
Patrick residents can make their opinions known on the matter at a public hearing scheduled next Thursday (March 29) in Stuart. It will be held at 6 p.m. in the third-floor boardroom of the county administration building.
In the meantime, the supervisors are trying to tweak the spending plan where possible. “We’re working to reduce the county budget,” Hayden said.
Reach Tom Joyce at 719-1924 or tjoyce@heartlandpublications.com.
Read more: Mount Airy News - Patrick official concerned about county budget
Please read the following article....Notice average income for Southern Virginia is Aprox. $22,500.00 average includes Tax Payer supported jobs.
Old Dominion Watchdog
ALEXANDRIA–Virginia’s unemployment rate is among the lowest in the nation and revenue jumped nearly 20 percent in May, but economic recovery is not coming to all Virginians, leaving Gov. Bob McDonnell skeptical that “a rising tide can lift all boats.”
In April, the state experienced growth of of 0.7 percent however, most Virginians did not experience this growth. The state’s good fortune is really the northern region’s good fortune, as the south of the state continues to lag. Northern Virginia carried the state, growing 1.1 percent in the month. This offset the decline in Hampton Roads and Richmond-Petersburg, which fell 0.2 and 1.0 percent respectively.
McDonnell is disturbed by the trend.
“I’m of the belief that the rising tide does not lift all boats and that’s why we’ve tried to focus on some of the mega trends in economic development and then try and direct as many projects as we can to the south side and southwest where they’ve had chronic double-digit unemployment,” he said. “Northern Virginia continues to drive a lot of the economic activity and sales tax. And locally it’s about the only area in the country where real estate values have actually started to go up again.”
Northern Virginia has proved one of the luckiest areas in the country during the recession and has bucked most economic trends, thanks to a surge in federal spending and job opportunities with government agencies, contractors and defense groups. It’s home prices have done the impossible, steadily rising even as the real estate market countrywide continues to free fall.
The south and southwest areas of the state have not been as lucky. These areas have reeled in economic decline for more than decade, as textile, tobacco and furniture makers have closed up shop, sending tens of thousands of blue collar workers into the unemployment line.
“Some places are growing, some are not,” state Secretary of Finance Ric Brown said. “Go to a place like Danville, a place that’s got high unemployment; you will find that its traditional economic base — textiles, furniture — left in recession and hasn’t come back and it isn’t coming back.”
The state is channeling projects and directing business to the poorer areas of the state. The $3 billion transportation spending pushed by McDonnell, for example, is expected to improve Virginia’s infrastructure and roads — but it will go a long way in getting unemployed textile factory workers back in the job market. Economic development, according to Brown, is even more important than state projects.
Leaders in Richmond courted businesses and money makers from across the world to set up shop in some of Virginia’s most distressed areas, and the state is shelling out millions in tax breaks in some cases to hammer a deal through. The governor’s office, for example, plans on shelling out $4.6 million to Steven Spielberg this year to help him produce his Abraham Lincoln biopic blockbuster. The Virginia Motion Picture Tax Credit program funds have ensured that the legendary director would park his trailers in the Richmond-Petersburg area for the next year and hopefully gin up some economic activity.
But financial incentives and business wooing are not so simple. The governor could have offered to pay for the entire film if only the director set it in Virginia Beach, Spielberg would have turned him down. The film required the natural setting and elements of the Richmond-Petersburg area; the subsidy just sweetened the deal.
“In terms of economic development, you must find employers that match up with these areas and it is difficult because they either don’t have the natural fiscal attraction to get a company interested or the quality of the workforce does not match up with what a company needs,” Brown said. “The stability of the region in northern Virginia has a lot to do with the human assets and educational levels that other regions in the state and country do not have.”
The state has highlighted education and vocational training in its incentive programs to prepare residents for work in more technologically advanced fields. Such incentives have produced some multi-million dollar expansions from companies in southern Virginia. On June 17, Presto Products Company, a packaging maker, announced a new $6 million investment in its Halifax County plant, drawing enthusiastic praise from the governor, as well as money and services from the state.
“The Southern Virginia Higher Education Center (SVHEC) collaborated with regional partners to develop and coordinate the multi-faceted workforce-training program. Training of incumbent workers will begin at the SVHEC in June,” a release from the governor’s office stated. “Through its Virginia Jobs Investment Program, the Virginia Department of Business Assistance will provide funding and services to support the company’s recruitment, training and retraining activities.”
McDonnell says such programs have produced results. There was even some good news for the state’s more distressed areas in the state’s latest economic report.
“The five top areas of the state that have shown the biggest improvement in unemployment rates have all been in the southside and southwest,” he said. “So, the things we’re starting to do down there have started to make a little bit of a difference.”
ALEXANDRIA–Virginia’s unemployment rate is among the lowest in the nation and revenue jumped nearly 20 percent in May, but economic recovery is not coming to all Virginians, leaving Gov. Bob McDonnell skeptical that “a rising tide can lift all boats.”
In April, the state experienced growth of of 0.7 percent however, most Virginians did not experience this growth. The state’s good fortune is really the northern region’s good fortune, as the south of the state continues to lag. Northern Virginia carried the state, growing 1.1 percent in the month. This offset the decline in Hampton Roads and Richmond-Petersburg, which fell 0.2 and 1.0 percent respectively.
McDonnell is disturbed by the trend.
“I’m of the belief that the rising tide does not lift all boats and that’s why we’ve tried to focus on some of the mega trends in economic development and then try and direct as many projects as we can to the south side and southwest where they’ve had chronic double-digit unemployment,” he said. “Northern Virginia continues to drive a lot of the economic activity and sales tax. And locally it’s about the only area in the country where real estate values have actually started to go up again.”
Northern Virginia has proved one of the luckiest areas in the country during the recession and has bucked most economic trends, thanks to a surge in federal spending and job opportunities with government agencies, contractors and defense groups. It’s home prices have done the impossible, steadily rising even as the real estate market countrywide continues to free fall.
The south and southwest areas of the state have not been as lucky. These areas have reeled in economic decline for more than decade, as textile, tobacco and furniture makers have closed up shop, sending tens of thousands of blue collar workers into the unemployment line.
“Some places are growing, some are not,” state Secretary of Finance Ric Brown said. “Go to a place like Danville, a place that’s got high unemployment; you will find that its traditional economic base — textiles, furniture — left in recession and hasn’t come back and it isn’t coming back.”
The state is channeling projects and directing business to the poorer areas of the state. The $3 billion transportation spending pushed by McDonnell, for example, is expected to improve Virginia’s infrastructure and roads — but it will go a long way in getting unemployed textile factory workers back in the job market. Economic development, according to Brown, is even more important than state projects.
Leaders in Richmond courted businesses and money makers from across the world to set up shop in some of Virginia’s most distressed areas, and the state is shelling out millions in tax breaks in some cases to hammer a deal through. The governor’s office, for example, plans on shelling out $4.6 million to Steven Spielberg this year to help him produce his Abraham Lincoln biopic blockbuster. The Virginia Motion Picture Tax Credit program funds have ensured that the legendary director would park his trailers in the Richmond-Petersburg area for the next year and hopefully gin up some economic activity.
But financial incentives and business wooing are not so simple. The governor could have offered to pay for the entire film if only the director set it in Virginia Beach, Spielberg would have turned him down. The film required the natural setting and elements of the Richmond-Petersburg area; the subsidy just sweetened the deal.
“In terms of economic development, you must find employers that match up with these areas and it is difficult because they either don’t have the natural fiscal attraction to get a company interested or the quality of the workforce does not match up with what a company needs,” Brown said. “The stability of the region in northern Virginia has a lot to do with the human assets and educational levels that other regions in the state and country do not have.”
The state has highlighted education and vocational training in its incentive programs to prepare residents for work in more technologically advanced fields. Such incentives have produced some multi-million dollar expansions from companies in southern Virginia. On June 17, Presto Products Company, a packaging maker, announced a new $6 million investment in its Halifax County plant, drawing enthusiastic praise from the governor, as well as money and services from the state.
“The Southern Virginia Higher Education Center (SVHEC) collaborated with regional partners to develop and coordinate the multi-faceted workforce-training program. Training of incumbent workers will begin at the SVHEC in June,” a release from the governor’s office stated. “Through its Virginia Jobs Investment Program, the Virginia Department of Business Assistance will provide funding and services to support the company’s recruitment, training and retraining activities.”
McDonnell says such programs have produced results. There was even some good news for the state’s more distressed areas in the state’s latest economic report.
“The five top areas of the state that have shown the biggest improvement in unemployment rates have all been in the southside and southwest,” he said. “So, the things we’re starting to do down there have started to make a little bit of a difference.”
WHEO RADIO BoS News links, click on the link to hear story.
http://www.wheo.info/NewsAudioJune2011/Trail%20Grant%20Fund%20Reimbursements%20Debated.mp3
The Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission’s mission also ensured its failure, according to a former member
Click here for story>>> http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/article.cfm?ID=28955
Click here for story>>> http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/article.cfm?ID=28955
