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and disposal of solid wastes, with landfill site improvements taking a sizable and growing slice. The other third goes into maintenance of county buildings and grounds, with buildirg improvements absorbing a rr ior share of that.
Note that a shrinking portion has been going, too, into administration. Together, general and judicial administration take six percent, down from 7.3 percent four years ago.
All told, county expenditures have more than doubled in those four years. That has to be counted as impressive when we remember that, beginning in 1982, the county has been sacrificing about a third of its land-tax base to LUV, the valuation of farmland according to its worth in farming rather than its market value.
A closer look, however, reveals some interesting facts that lurk in the raw data. One: Much of the county’s increased outlay has gone into inflation, rather than improvements in services. Yet, even after inflation, the county’s total outlay this year has been buying 26.5 percent more than the expenditure total did in 1981, though, again, much of the rise is in construction and the like.
And some services have been favored over others. While total spending in terms of 1981 prices is up 26.5 percent, public works has soared 151 percent and public safety 133 percent.
Education, meanwhile, has gained a bit less than 20 percent in real terms. And instruction outlays - salaries, teaching materials and the like-have risen a token 4.6 percent. While other Virginia communities have been moving to catch up in teacher pay, Rappahannock has managed to do little more than keep teachers’ pay adjusted for the rise in living costs, with almost no real increases. If we wonder why our school system now ranks 125th among Virginia’s 136 counties and cities for minimum teacher pay and 126th for maximum pay, we need look no further.
Financial support for justice - our judicial system - also lags, with a real rise of 13 percent. The wonderfully low level of crime in our community might help explain that, though in can hardly explain the huge rise in expenditure allotment going to protect us from crime.
Health and welfare, up 18 percent, also have gotten less than a proportionate share of the increase.
Note, too, that provision for overhead, or general administration - off two percent in buying-power dollars — has not kept up with inflation.
In our next look at the budget, we go to the revenue window to learn who pays for our public services and how public services compare with market goods and services in the community’s list of priorities.
CHARLESAND
HELEN PLATT
Rock Mills
94.4%