Wythe County reviews FY 2025–26 budget, proposes tax rates and requests four new child-welfare positions

The Wythe County Board of Supervisors reviewed a draft fiscal 2025–26 budget and a proposed tax levy and heard a request to revise the county budget to add four child-welfare positions that the Commonwealth is funding in part.

The county read its budget synopsis and the notice of public hearing for the school budget. The proposed tax rates presented to the board were: real estate $0.51 per $100 of assessed value; tangible personal property $2.22; machinery and tools $1.50; and merchants’ capital $0.56. The public comment period on the tax levy included no signed speakers and was closed, the board’s chair said.

The request to change the county budget came from the county social services office, which said the Virginia General Assembly had allocated 60 child-welfare worker positions statewide and that Wythe County had been allocated four of those positions. “I cannot express to you how monumental that is,” the Social Services Director told the board, and asked the supervisors to revise the local budget to include the four new positions and the required local matching funds. The presenter said the package is structured so that, if the county accepts the full package including the local match, the positions would become part of the ongoing base budget.

Board members and staff discussed next steps. The county administrator said final revisions to the budget would be returned to the board on June 10 and, unless objections were raised, the administrator would include the additional roughly $400,000 in the revised budget to cover the state allocation and the required local match. The administrator noted the budget document is prepared from estimates and requests from constitutional officers, agencies and department heads and that inclusion in the draft does not constitute an appropriation until the board adopts a budget.

The school division’s proposed total expenditures were read into the record during the hearing. The county administrator summarized other proposed capital and operating items in the draft budget including about $1.1 million for fire-rescue vehicles, about $2.5 million for the Dunford Road project, more than $600,000 for transportation-related projects, and roughly $500,000 for courthouse and library HVAC and related capital work. The administrator also said the county’s overall budget is roughly $400,000 less than last year while the school board’s proposed budget shows an increase of roughly $2.2 million and an increase in local operating funds of about $1.4 million.

Why it matters: the supervisors set tax rates and appropriate funds; adding state-funded child-welfare positions changes local staffing and long-term payroll obligations because the local match will become part of the county’s base budget if the board accepts the package.

The board did not take a final appropriation vote on the budget during the portions of the meeting covered in the transcript; the administrator indicated a revised budget would be returned for action at a later meeting.