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Supervisor Charles Estes was probably right when he maintained that the county cannot afford to shoulder an additional financial obligation in this year of the budget crunch.
The supervisors have more than they can handle already in defending the hefty tax increase called for in the proposed 1983-84 budget unveiled at Monday’s work session.
The 58 cent rate required to balance the proposed budget is an increase of 81 percent over the current year. At the same time, however, the increase in the bottom line of county expenditures from 1982-83 to what is proposed for 1983-84 is just 11 percent. The stretch between the two is the result of stop-gap methods employed last year to avoid a tax increase.
The supervisors chose to dip into county surplus rather than raise the rate. They had just weatherd a storm of protest over the new 100 fair market value assessments that went into effect at the same time. According to chairman J.R. Latham, the board also believed that Rappahannock folks would appreciate the tax break afforded by the withdrawal of surplus to meet rising expenditures.
The people did appreciate that break—not a single complainer* showed up for last year’s hearing on the tax rate. The question is, will they remember that break when they read the news of this year’s prdptfced levy? And will they remember- all the breaks they been handed in the past decade or so?
According to data compiled from the Virginia Department of Taxation’s records, Rappahannock’s true effective tax rate declined from 44 cents in 1966 to 19 cents in 1980. The county’s levy that year was the second lowest in the Commonwealth.
We haven’t yet received those same types of figues for the years since 1980. We’re not taxation experts and it is difficult to translate the county’s old discounted assessment system and even the new fair market value into a true effective rate quotation. But according to Rappahannock’s accountant Wally Cox, the 32 cent rate set by the supervisors last June and applied to the fair market value assessments is just a fraction of a cent over the previous year’s dis
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