Norfolk City Council unanimously agrees on budget

NORFOLK

The City Council unanimously passed a $1.17 billion budget on Tuesday that, despite the recession, calls for no layoffs, no pay cuts and no tax increases.

Faced with increasing costs for medical insurance, retirement expenditures and debt service, City Manager Regina V.K. Williams trimmed the budgets of most departments and eliminated 64 vacant positions. The budget, which goes into effect July 1, will reduce spending over last year by about $20 million.

"She did a tremendous job under difficult circumstances," Vice Mayor Anthony L. Burfoot said.

Williams had originally proposed a 1 percent pay cut for the city's nearly 5,000 employees. After the council asked her to reconsider, she came up with a combination of new revenue and other budget cuts of $2 million.

Most of it came from new revenue, including $580,000 in interest savings from recent bond sales, $367,000 in an anticipated increase in real estate taxes and $465,000 in delinquent personal property tax collections.

Williams' plan reduces economic incentives given to developers by $488,000. Another $100,000 would be saved by reducing expenditures on security at City Hall.

Williams warned that next year's budget likely will be more difficult to balance.

Residential real estate assessments fell slightly this year. However, because assessments are based on house sales from July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2008, most of the decline in housing prices won't be reflected in assessments until next year. Norfolk is about six months behind other local cities in gathering assessment data.

Harry Minium, (757) 446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com