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City budget cuts funds to outside agencies

Council members digging into what city gives outside agencies

BY EMILY BATTLE

Date published: 4/23/2007

BY EMILY BATTLE

This year, the Arc of Rappahannock is helping 37 Fredericksburg residents with mental retardation to get dental care that wouldn't be available to them anywhere else.

Meanwhile, the Sister City Association is promoting cultural exchange programs to highlight Fredericksburg's partnership with Frejus, France.

Both groups have asked for money from the Fredericksburg taxpayers to keep doing these things next year.

While the Sister City group has been recommended to receive its $4,000 request, the Arc was recommended to get none of its $4,620 request.

As a result, Arc Executive Director Jan Griffin said she's going to have to stop fixing rotting teeth and other major dental problems found among the city residents who visit Arc's dental clinic.

"I don't know how I am going to find it in my heart to tell these people, 'I cannot help you,'" Griffin said.

The Arc's situation is an example of how seemingly small decisions in the city budget process can have a big impact outside of City Hall.

Fredericksburg officials are proposing to contribute $6.8 million to outside agencies in next year's budget. That's 5.7 percent more than the city gave these groups this year.

As next year's budget deliberations wear on, two City Council members are taking a closer look at this part of the budget. Councilmen Matt Kelly and Marvin Dixon outlined several potential cuts to groups on this list on Tuesday.

Dixon said his recommendations were made out of an attempt to be equitable between what outside agencies get and what the workers in City Hall get.

They are also an attempt to avoid having to raise taxes on city homeowners. The proposed budget includes a 10-cent real-estate tax increase. Dixon and Kelly's proposal could reduce that by a cent.

"I do not want to raise the real-estate tax even a penny," Dixon said. "I also don't want to cut anyone's allocations. But how do I reconcile those two extremes? You're going to have to work both ends to the middle."

Dixon and Kelly also recommended some cuts inside City Hall.

Councilmen Marvin Dixon and Matt Kelly outlined the following proposals at Tuesday's budget work session for cutting city spending on outside agencies: Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce: Cut $10,000 allocation, which was made by mistake, since the Chamber never requested it. Downtown Retail Marketing Inc.: Cut $7,000 allocation to $5,000. Fredericksburg Area Food Bank: Cut $13,000 allocation altogether. Rappahannock Area Mediation Center: Cut $8,000 allocation to $2,000. Central Rappahannock Regional Library: Cut $130,000 from the proposed $1.34 million allocation. Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center: Cut $45,000 from the $145,000 this group gets in operating money. The museum is also slated to receive $100,000 in capital money next year. Fredericksburg Regional Alliance: Either cut $30,903 allocation in half or cut it altogether. RACSB: Cut $233,405 allocation by $11,500. TOTAL POTENTIAL SAVINGS: Between $233,000 and $248,500, depending on how much the Regional Alliance is cut. That is equal to roughly one penny on the real-estate tax rate. Other groups mentioned for potential cuts: The Central Rappahannock Heritage Center, slated to get $8,000 to move from the city industrial park to the former Maury School, and the Fredericksburg Volunteer Fire Department, slated to get $20,000 for its operations.

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Date published: 4/23/2007

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