Government Efficiency

I pledged greater Spotsylvania County government efficiency - delivered!  Please see below.

Although the examples below are great ways I've directly helped in creating a more efficient county government - I think the best method / tool that has been used several times since I have been the Courtland Representative on the Board of Supervisors is that of "advertising the residential and personal property tax rates below the equalized rate."

By doing this, along with the fact that in Virginia, Counties must have an annual budget that is balanced, leaders of County Staff must look at how they are doing business and find those dead waste spots that can go.  The final budget rate for each of these taxes may always be lowered more than the advertised rate - but they can never go up from the advertised tax rate unless re-advertised - which was never done while I have been in office. 

I have also been a huge advocate of not penalizing departments that spend less than budget.  During my 20 plus years in the United States Marine Corps - of which I will always have the highest regard for - there were many a September (end of the Fiscal Year) where squadrons and various units would do all they could to "spend the money / fuel / etc." so as to get the same budget as the current year.  Departments in Spotsylvania County are not being penalized if they don't spend all their budgets in this way. 

Finally - as we need to continue to improve promoting efficient use of every resource Spotsylvania has - please look at the water tower above.  If you or I owned this water tower - on Interstate 95 - one of the highest traveled roads in America - would it be "blank"? 

Of course not - we would be getting revenue from an advertiser if we owned this.  Well - Spotsylvania Citizens - we do own this and my goal, if I am honored to serve you again as your Representative will be to bring in more non-traditional revenue streams to the County - so taxpayers can get more relief. 

Please see other examples below

Water tower income / landfill income

The structurally sound water tower below was slated for tearing down which was going to cause the cell provider to have to move - to a proposed site in a residential area of Courtland - by working together with staff - I was able to keep tower in place - repaint it - and contract out over the next 7 years to produce over 240,000 to Spotsy County over this same period. 

Additionally - I was approached by another cell provider who had somewhat stalled out negotiations with County Staff on a cell tower at the Harrison Landfill - in the Courtland District.  In this case, the County owns a new cell tower at the Harrison landfill that we did not have to build - approximate value $200K - and we can rent out to other venders.  Additionally, after 72 months, the company that built the tower will pay the County $35K plus/year to be there.  We need to do more of this - but this is a great start.
Picture
repainted water / cell tower just off Cherry Road - Spotsylvania County

Sidewalk to gravel road

In 2012, Spotsylvania County was offered a federal grant for over a million dollars to build a sidewalk from the courthouse area to the gravel road of the Confederate Cemetery.  This included spending over $300,000 of local Spotsylvania tax payer money.  The high cost came primarily from needing to move utilities for the sidewalk build out.  My memory had the sidewalk costing $567 per linear foot - way out of line as far as costs go and who wants to walk to a gravel road? 

I opposed this project, which I considered a waste of taxpayer money - we are all federal taxpayers too.

  You can read about by clicking here.  

county credit card use

I became aware of some on County Staff using their County Credit cards for an abnormal amount of lunches.  Because of this information - while I was Chairman of our Board of Supervisors in 2014, I requested an accounting of all expenses by each Director in the County. 


My request led to the identification of some interesting expenses to say the least.  Such as purchasing rocking chairs from Cracker Barrel for retirement (taxpayer money) gifts and very expensive - over time - coffee and lunch purchases. 


As an outcome - I requested that the board review credit card use policy and we now have a new policy on credit card use that was non-existent prior to 2012. 

up next - advertising

The County owns some major property that could and would benefit from advertising as far as additional revenues to the County - which means less need to pull from the taxpayer. 

Have you ever been to a private swimming pool, a private school's athletic field, The Fredericksburg Field house and looked at the advertising?  In Richmond, there is an old water tower that has a UHAUL symbol painted on it. 

We have a major water tower on I95 at mile marker 118 that I believe has advertising revenue potential of 50 - 60K / year.  Our County has baseball and soccer fields that could also produce advertising revenue as well as our five high school football fields.  I would like to see the County operate like a business in this area - giving all the money produced by advertising back to the County - which in turn could be used for either doing good things like reducing the athletic fee - or reducing taxes - which will benefit everyone. 
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