On June 10th the Board of Supervisors adopted a $25 million budget for the 2003-2004 fiscal year. While this represents a flat budget (no increases) from last year it should be noted that the year before saw increases in the budget of 25 percent.

     Real Estate Property Taxes and Personal Property taxes combined (8.2 million) make up 68 percent of the total 12 million dollars raised from local sources. Other local sources of funding are from sales taxes, permits, 911 fees, and meals taxes, etc. The 12 million raised locally is 47 percent of the county's total budget of 25 million.

     Madison County citizens are handing over 6.6 million dollars of locally raised money to the School Board for operations at the five remaining schools and the school administration building. The School Board, while asking for a 400,000 plus increase this year alone from the county, received a 250,000 dollar increase. Operations this year were curtailed at Criglersville Elementary School and the building shut down amid controversy about the savings to be realized by the School Board in their effort to centralize the county schools. The school budget remains the largest single expense item in the budget and consumes 59 percent of all local money collected. This coming year it will cost approximately 3500 dollars of local money to educate each child in the Madison Public Schools.

     The major categories of spending in the county are listed below with their respective percentages of the whole:

Education               66%  school operations, transportation, and administration, etc.
Public Safety           11%  fire, rescue, sheriff, 911 system, etc.
Health and Welfare       6%  Health Dept., Welfare services, etc.
Debt Service             5%  literacy loans and Clore land purchase, etc.
Public Works             4%  transfer station, maintaince of buildings, etc.
General Administration   3%  Board of Supervisors, Co. Administrator, Auditor, etc.
Judicial Administration  2%  Courts, Clerk of Court, Commonwealth Attorney, etc.
Capital Projects         1%  facilities purchase and remodeling, etc.
Recreation and Cultural  1%  Parks and Rec., Germania Comm. College and WVPT Public TV, etc.
Community Development    1%  planning, zoning, environmental management, etc.


TOTAL                  100%