Vienna Budget Increases Unneeded

From the Vienna Times, an editorial from Vienna resident Ron Corso:

In your article last week regarding the Town of Vienna budget, you indicated that no one made any comments on the budget. That is incorrect. You ignored my many letters to The Times, some of which you published in the paper or on your Web site, that pointed out that the Town has been on an unprecedented spending spree for several years. In addition, I have respectfully tried to call to the Town's attention the effect of budget increases on homeowners. To update you on the state of the budget, the Town manager made a change in the budget message by making what appears to be a late change and probably a lot of people like myself were not aware of this situation. His budget message, published on the Town Web site, states that the tax rate would increase from 18.62 cents per $100 of assessed value to 19.61 cents. The Web site statement as of 2:58 p.m. on April 28 is as follows: "The Fiscal Year 2007/08 budget is based on a rate of 19.61 cents, an increase of 1.08 cents per $100 of assessed valuation or 5.83 percent." However, the last Town newsletter has a revised tax rate of 20.22 cents, an increase of 1.6 cents. What this means is that instead of the tax rate increasing by 5.3 percent (the Town manager's arithmetic doesn't equal his stated 5.83 percent), the tax rate according to the newsletter will increase our taxes by 8.6 percent. The stated reason for the change in the newsletter version is that the Town is eliminating the auto decals, which will save each residence $20 per year for each vehicle. While the new tax rate will probably result in about the same amount of money out of our pockets, it is still difficult to understand why our tax rate is increasing at either the 5.3 percent or 8.6 percent. It's interesting that the newsletter version of the budget message has left the phrase quoted above out of the newsletter. It makes one wonder if that's because 8.6 percent increase just before an election might not have played well to voters. That is interesting given its timing. Furthermore, if you look at the Town budgets since our home assessments began to increase dramatically, you'll find that Vienna has increased the taxes on homeowners over 10 percent per year. When compared to any other measure, whether it be the inflation rate, salary increases, the CPI, etc., those are unacceptable tax increases. Yet the Town has made no effort to curtail spending. The taxpayers continue to get pummeled and we are in fact going backwards when you consider what is happening to our costs given gasoline, heating, medical and other expenses. And, the Town doesn't care, it keeps spending. Ron Corso Vienna

Ron, you can't beat this crowd with logic and common sense!