Albemarle County officials are predicting that a sizeable deficit will accumulate during the 2009-10 fiscal year, forcing Albemarle County schools to shoulder $2.66 million in budget cuts.
County officials have cited lower-than-anticipated personal property and sales taxes as cause for concern. Property taxes will probably collect about $1.4 million this fiscal year - 6.6 percent less than the county planned. Sales taxes, meanwhile, will accumulate only $600,000, about 4.8 percent less than what the budget had estimated, said Lindsay Dorrier, a member of Albemarle County's board of supervisors. Revenue collected from the sale of business licenses is expected to amount to $589,885, or 5.9 percent less than projected.
The county also expects real estate tax revenue figures to be about $1 million less than anticipated, Dorrier added.
Additionally, commonwealth officials reduced Virginia's normal allocation of funds to the county, which will result in a $4.74 million budget shortfall, Dorrier said.
In large part, Albemarle Public Schools will face the brunt of the cuts' effects. Maury Brown, communications coordinator of Albemarle County Public schools, said the superintendent and the school board will soon begin evaluating the cuts. Last year, when the schools faced a similar problem, Brown said they tried to keep the cuts from affecting students' learning time. Instead, the school board reevaluated the necessity of some jobs and tightened departmental budgets. This strategy, though, may not be possible this year.
"We're trying hard to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible," Brown said, "But as they accumulate year after year it gets harder and harder."
County Finance Director Richard Wiggans said the county's board members will sit down in the near future to finalize a 5-year budget plan, accounting for the anticipated shortfall this year.
"The shortfalls are going to force us to analyze every expenditure," he said.
If the projected $4.74 million deficit materializes, $300,000 will be taken from capital and infrastructure projects, and the local government budget will lose $1.77 million, Wiggans said.
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