With the crafting of next year's budget well under way, Chesterfield County leaders took time Wednesday to look to the years ahead during a meeting of the Board of Supervisors' Budget and Audit Committee.
The picture they began painting wasn't the prettiest, but the process was certainly amicable. On a few occasions, the budget staff and the Board of Supervisors members even shared laughs at each other's expense.
"Sit around the dinner table with me sometime, Matt, and we'll see who can get more pessimistic," board Chairman Daniel A. Gecker said to senior budget analyst Matt Harris, after disagreeing with Harris' assessment of the possibility of a small economic recovery as early as fiscal 2014, which will begin July 1, 2013.
The presentation by Harris and budget director Allan Carmody was a preview of a formal presentation they will make during the full board meeting on Feb. 22. It included a brief talk on tax rates for next year. Those, including the county's 95 cents per $100 real estate tax rate, are expected to stay the same.
The surge in some local revenue being discussed was less than 1 percent.
Harris said planners needed to "take everything in the last 10 years and throw it out the window."
"It's a little bit different reality," he said, suggesting the county would "have to reset" its expectations for a world in which steady growth, which had been normal before the recession, was no longer a reality.
When Dale District supervisor James M. "Jim" Holland asked about pitfalls in the years ahead, Harris began talking about energy prices, geopolitical strife and other issues far from Chesterfield. Harris was clear that anything offered on that front was pure speculation.
At different points in the conversation, County Administrator James J. L. Stegmaier, school Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome, School Board members Patty Carpenter and David Wyman, and school finance chief David Myers also participated. The mood was more one of contemplative cooperation than the divisiveness that plagued discussions in years past.
When pressed by Gecker about the reality of predictions often being wrong, Stegmaier acknowledged that the county's projections missed on occasion.
"As long as we stay wrong in the right direction, we're all right," he said.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement