BY JONAS BEALS
Money problems weigh heavily on any relationship, but it's usually a lack of cash--rather than a surplus--that causes a split.
Earlier this month, the Stafford County Board of Supervisors found itself holding an extra $6.2 million. It resulted in perhaps the most explosive partisan infighting seen in two years of sporadic party-line bickering. December will end in a mandatory separation.
There has been a certain amount of tension among board members at most meetings this year, but the surplus appeared at the perfect time to spark conflict.
Supervisors reached a boiling point during their Dec. 15 meeting when four of the seven voted to allocate the bulk of the surplus to support a retirement trust fund.
Supervisor Harry Crisp said the vote on the surplus "brought matters to a head." At the meeting, Crisp raised his voice on what he felt was "bullying" from Supervisor Paul Milde. Milde had vehemently objected to Crisp's "springing" his proposal on the board.
"Perhaps it brought some emotion out into the open that had been under the surface," Crisp said. "Unfortunately, it came out in strong language. We should be above that sort of thing. It was totally painful."
MAKING CHANGE
The current board has a 3-3-1 split. George Schwartz, Bob Woodson and Crisp are Democrats; Cord Sterling, Mark Dudenhefer and Milde are Republicans; Joe Brito
Republicans, more or less the minority party for the past two years, will have an ironclad 5-2 majority come January.
When the extra $6.2 million showed up on the books, the board voted 4-3 at its Dec. 1 meeting to spend $1.4 million of it. That was not a party-line vote, as Crisp, a Democrat, sided with Republicans Sterling, Dudenhefer and Milde. About $1 million went to raises for school employees, and the remainder went to the Sheriff's Office for bonuses.
Board Democrats then floated a proposal to return the remaining $4.8 million to taxpayers, but that resolution was tabled at the Dec. 15 meeting.
Instead, a 4-1 vote allocated the remaining surplus to a retirement benefit trust fund for county and school employee health care. Dudenhefer was the sole dissenting vote, Sterling was absent and Milde refused to vote. Milde walked out of the meeting after the vote.
Republicans had hoped to hold the surplus in reserve, a position favored by County Administrator Anthony Romanello as a hedge against next year's poor financial outlook.
"This was malicious and deliberate," Sterling later said. "It was done specifically to impact the county in a negative way. I feel like they [the Democrats] tried to create a disaster. I don't know how bad it will be."
Board Democrats said the move was an appropriate use of one-time funds, and would put the county in a better financial position as it faces future budget challenges.
Brito, the lone independent supervisor, said applying the money to the retirement trust fund is probably how the board would have used the money had it known the surplus existed during the budget process. That wasn't the only motivation for Brito, who will leave the board at the end of the month.
"I don't trust the new board coming in to be responsible," he said. "They don't have a history of being responsible. I don't see evidence of them being responsible in the future."
BPOL BACKGROUND
One of the subtexts of the surplus allocation is the Business, Professional and Occupational License tax.
The controversial levy is scheduled to go into effect next month, and the four Republicans whom voters swept into office in November campaigned on repealing the tax.
Doing so has become a more difficult proposition now that a potential cash cushion has been appropriated by the current board.
Crisp said: "I personally felt that if the money was going to be expended rather than reserved, I certainly did not want it used to support the repeal of BPOL. That was in the back of my mind."
Republicans say the vote was hasty and inappropriate.
Sterling went further, saying the decision to appropriate the money was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the plans of the incoming board. He called it "guerrilla tactics."
Sterling said an e-mail memo by former independent Falmouth Supervisor David Beiler suggested that outgoing board members use a malicious strategy to thwart the incoming majority. He said that strategy "puts your entire community at risk for political gain."
In the memo, Beiler, a political consultant who advised Brito's and Doug Filler's unsuccessful fall campaigns, advises the remaining Democrats on the board to either give up or "follow the strategic example of the Republicans" and "conduct an unrelenting guerrilla war of confrontation over the next four years."
He recommends forcing a vote on BPOL to pressure Republicans into making a decision that could cause financial distress for the county. The memo was written before the $6.2 million surplus was verified.
"I don't think they've ever followed a suggestion the way I suggest it," Beiler said.
"Any time you write something, people of Sterling's caliber can lift pieces out of context and miss the broader point for their own purposes. It was more of an indictment of the past two years than how to conduct the next two years."
The memo became such a hot item during the meeting that the board voted 4-3 to post it on the county Web site. Supervisors Crisp, Brito and Schwartz voted against it. Beiler gave permission to post it, but only in its entirety and without comments.
BOARD BREAKDOWN
When Schwartz, Brito, Crisp and Woodson voted to appropriate the remaining surplus, decorum left the board chambers.
Supervisors traded barbs, voices were raised and members walked out. Personal attacks escalated after the meeting was adjourned.
"I didn't expect it, but I feared it," Sterling said of the rancor. "To have it happen at this time after these elections, with an outgoing majority, you have to take that into account. It was definitely a situation that did not lend itself to comity and long-term thinking."
Crisp agreed, and hopes board interaction improves next year. He said Republicans have made party politics a bigger issue than it really is. Since they will have a majority next year, he hopes those accusations end.
"I hope we can have a high level of decorum at our meetings," Crisp said. "I'll be optimistic. But it won't surprise me if we break down into the kind of contentious discussions we've had. "
Jonas Beals: 540/368-5036
Email: jbeals@freelancestar.com