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Lunenburg County has a new budget in place, after supervisors unanimously approved it in their Thursday, June 12 meeting. There were just a couple changes from the version originally advertised, due to adjustments made on the state level. 

First, let’s highlight the key point and when employees will get it. As part of the final state budget, some Lunenburg County employees will get a bonus in July. This part is fully covered by the General Assembly, so no adjustments in the local budget were needed. The bonus will be 1.5% of the person’s base pay and will be given to full-time salaried employees of Lunenburg County who were with the county on Feb. 25 and are still employed as of July 1. 

Changes in the budget

Now on to the part that is changing. These changes came about due to some final alterations before the state budget got signed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. 

“During the period of getting (the budget) ready for advertisement, we received more information from the (state) compensation board,” Lunenburg County Administrator Tracy Gee told the board of supervisors during their Thursday, June 12 meeting. 

Part of the impact comes from the sheriff’s office. The state compensation board decided to require a 6% increase in salary for dispatchers. Unlike the bonus required by the state, this was not fully covered by the General Assembly. Also, as part of the changes, a new position has been created in the circuit court’s office. As a result, what had been $51,817,074 is now a total budget of $52,134,002. Under state law, if a budget increases or decreases less than 1% of the total, then it doesn’t have to go back for another public hearing. That’s the case here. The increase overall was less than 1%, so the county didn’t need to go through the process a second time. 

Now that budget is mainly funded in three ways. First, through $3.9 million in real estate tax revenue. The second is $3.2 million in personal property taxes. The third source of revenue for Lunenburg County is county landfill fees, estimated at $1 million this year. A fourth source of revenue used to balance this year’s budget is the county’s reserves. Town staff pulled $1,413,079 from the reserves to avoid having to raise the tax rate higher. There is also reserve funds set aside for schools. If all of that is spent, a total of $413,602, the total pulled from reserves will increase to $1,826,681. 

Funding 911 in Lunenburg

The Lunenburg County budget calls for $218,200 from solar siting agreements to pay for the county’s 911 fund. Here’s the concern. Those solar payments are one-time, not guaranteed recurring. That means the money used to pay for the 911 Fund this time around may not be there in one year or two down the road. 

The 911 Fund covers the costs of both emergency services and the county’s radio communication system. On a yearly basis, Lunenburg has roughly about $228,000 in maintenance costs for the radio system. 

And to be clear, this is in addition to the money being taken from the reserves to cover gaps in the general fund. And it’s not something that can be done on a year-to-year basis. 

While there was enough this year from solar siting agreements to cover the 911 fund this year, that’s a one-time bit of revenue being asked to fill in an ongoing expense. There was $2,032,192 as of May 1 in the economic development fund, where the solar siting agreement money was placed. 

Increases for sheriff and schools

Also in this budget, the sheriff’s vehicle allowance will double. Lunenburg County has an annual vehicle purchase allowance of $30,000 currently allocated for the sheriff’s office. With prices going up across the board in recent months, the cost per vehicle now doesn’t allow the department to buy even one new vehicle and stay within that allowance, as Sheriff Arthur Townsend explained to supervisors during budget discussions last month. 

To address that, county staff allocated an extra $30,000, bringing Sheriff Townsend’s vehicle purchase allowance to a yearly $60,000 in the Lunenburg County budget. 

And now we turn toward the schools. For next year, Lunenburg County Public Schools came with a request of $6,113,191 in local funding. That’s based on a projected daily student attendance of 1,487, up slightly from the current 1,483. When factoring in federal and state funding, the school district’s budget for next year stands at $29,077,284. That’s an increase of $1.514 million from this year. 

Moving forward in Lunenburg

With a unanimous vote, supervisors signed off on the new budget. This takes effect as of July 1.