By Matt de Simone
The Botetourt County Board of Supervisors has scheduled public hearings on April 9 at 6 p.m. at the County Administration Center to discuss the proposed Fiscal Year 2025-26 budget and tax levy. Finance Director Katie Davis provided an update of the budget process during last week’s board meeting and gave an overview of the advertised budget for the planned adoption at the board’s April 22 meeting.
Davis provided the framework provided to county departments when submitting the budget requests for this year which included:
- A maximum of a 3% increase in non-personnel operating requests
- Alignment with existing board priorities and projects
- Prioritization of Parks & Recreation services and facilities expansion
- Focus on employee recruitment and retention
All formal internal stages of the budget process have been completed. Davis noted that amendments can still be made to the proposed budget leading up to the April 22 meeting.
This year, education remains the largest categorical expense area followed closely by public safety which combined comprise about two thirds of the operating budget. Davis provided a “roadmap” of the budget calendar, review stages, operating expenditures, Capital Improvement Plan requests, a budget progression summary, FY26 revenue projections, and a comparison of revenues to expenditures.
Board Chair Amy White and other members of the board commended Davis and her team’s efforts of working hard during this year’s budget process.
“For those of you who haven’t been attending (board meetings) each month, I just want to commend Ms. Davis—she’s put together these updates,” White added. “It allows us to stay abreast of where we are in the process. As (Davis) noted, these are not final numbers. We still have to go through that part but really appreciate road mapping us through this rather complicated process and it helps us let our constituents know where we are in the process and where there can be input.”
Budget Overview
The proposed budget totals $146.88 million in revenues and expenditures.
- General Fund Revenues: $96.77 million (local: $82.18M, state: $13.23M, federal: $1.36M)
- School Fund Revenues: $48.10 million (state: $37.03M, other sources: $11.07M)
- Use of Unassigned Fund Balance: $2.01 million
Expenditures:
- General Fund: $66.41 million (operations: $53.88M, capital projects: $3.00M, debt service: $9.13M, transfer to EDA: $400K)
- School Fund: $80.46 million
Tax Rates
No changes are proposed for tax rates:
- Real Estate & Mobile Homes: $0.70 per $100 of assessed value
- Machinery & Tools: $2.00
- Personal Property (General & Vehicles): $2.71–$2.94
- Wind Farms: $0.99
To watch the full presentation in its entirety, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyxyzA4sniA and jump to the 34:46 mark.
