Commission reviews December financials, approves FY2012 fiscal stress report and readies fiscal‑impact work for 2014 session

At its Jan. 6 meeting the Commission on Local Government reviewed internal financial results for December 2013, approved a draft fiscal stress report for FY2012 and discussed the Commission’s workload preparing local fiscal‑impact statements for the 2014 General Assembly.

Local Government Policy Manager Zack Robbins presented the internal financial statement through December 2013, reporting personnel expenditures at 44% of the total budget, non‑personnel expenditures at 23%, and overall expenditures at 39% of the fiscal‑year budget to date. Robbins also reported the Senior Policy Analyst selection process was complete and that staff expected to announce the selected candidate in the next few days.

Senior Public Finance Analyst Ed Lanza described the fiscal stress index used in the draft Report on the Comparative Revenue Capacity, Revenue Effort, and Fiscal Stress of Virginia’s Cities and Counties for FY2012. He said the index uses 100 to indicate the statewide average and that stress scores are divided by standard deviation; commissioners agreed to include a web link to computational exhibits in the final draft. Mr. Goodson moved and Mr. Hendrix seconded approval of the draft fiscal stress report subject to the web‑link addition; the motion passed unanimously.

Lanza also summarized the Commission’s statutory duty under the Code of Virginia to determine whether bills referred for local fiscal impact impose a “net increase in expenditures” or a “net reduction in revenues.” He outlined current processes: 36 local volunteers (19 counties, 12 cities, 5 towns) provide local data; staff synthesizes that input into fiscal impact statements provided to bill patrons and posted on the Legislative Information System. Staff is piloting the eFIS system and identified HB199, a bill that would permit the Department of Planning and Budget and the Department of Taxation to forward bills to Commission staff for review, as relevant to the Commission’s work.

Commissioners also noted a budget proposal in the Appropriation Act that would reduce state pass‑through funding to planning district commissions by $70,000 per year for the 2014–16 biennium. Robbins said the Governor’s Task Force for Local Government Mandate Review would meet Feb. 19 and that pension topics had been the main subject of recent meetings.

The Commission set its next meeting for March 10, 2014, discussed remote‑participation notice requirements under open‑meeting rules, and adjourned at 12:07 p.m.