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4. Nothing is sure in this life except death and taxes, or so the old saying goes. And the only sure thing about taxes is that they go up. Rappahannock’s levy was no exception this year.
When the supervisors took their first I$ok at proposed expenditures for 1984, they blanched at the draft budget that carried with it a staggering 81 percent increase—from 32 cents to 58 cents—on the rate for real estate. Accountant Wally Cox explained the reason behind the huge jump: last year’s decision to draw $238,000 from surplus rather than raise the rate 11 cents to generate the same revenue. Of the 26 cent increase in the levy to carry the draft budget, surplus adjustments accounted for half, he told the board.
But whether from surplus adjustments or increased spending, an 81 percent increase was too much for the board to swallow, especially in an election year. The supervisors slashed $233,000 from proposed expenditures, most of it from school requests, to cut 10 cents from the rate. Another six cents came off through a projected increase in federal revenue sharing and postponement of county-wide reassessment, bringing the adopted tax rate on real estate down to 42 cents, still a 31 percent hike.
Power Line
5. In another major story that could have statewide implications, Rappahannock’s Circuit Court put a limit on the powers of power companies, ruling that Potomac Edison could not rebuild a transmission line across Bill and Susan Cameron’s Sperryville property relying on a right-of-way granted to its predecessor utility in 1928. Pot Ed had sought to upgrade its existing 34.5 kilovolt line, carried on poles 20 to 30 feet tall, to 134 kilovolts on 60 to 70 foot poles. The line, when completed, will run from Luray to the Sperryville substation and will more than
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