Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 5 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
To the editor:
A headline in the June 14th issue of the Rappahannock News captured my attention: “County among state’s richest.”
I read on to find a basis for this spectacular headline. This remarkable finding is based on a “magical number” called the Local Composite Index (LCI) that computes 50 percent from real estate values, 40 percent from adjusted income (per family? per student? per resident?), and 10 percent from taxable retail sales.
While the greatest value of this index is assigned to the value of real estate, we are left in the dark as to how this value is derived. Is it the total of assessed values in the county? Is it putative values derived from reported asking prcies? What is the basis for establishing the value of $439,000,000 for 1987?
This LCI heavily skewed toward real estate (notoriously illiquid in rural areas), does not seem to me to be a fair measure of what public service the county can afford.
A more meaningful measure of how well-off people in Rappahannock County are compared to those in other state localities could be found in median family incomes for 1989. Rappahannock’s median family income for 1989 is $18,450. On page 18 of the “Commonwealth ’88 — a
95.5%