WAYNESBORO, VA – Despite the focus on cost-cutting measures, a 53-percent increase in fleet maintenance expenses was among the items in Waynesboro City Manager Mike Hamp's $39.4 million fiscal year 2010 budget proposal submitted to the City Council April 3, according to The News Virginian. The total fleet maintenance increase would be $65,866.

The budget calls for a mandatory, two-day furlough for all city employees, as well as 16 positions that would be frozen, moved to enterprise funds or eliminated. Hamp proposes eliminating four classified positions from the Department of Public Works, one of those through retirement.

The proposed budget amount is a 1.9 percent reduction in general fund spending from the original, adopted fiscal year 2009 budget of $40.1 million, though the council has cut $1.4 million from that already in the current budget year, which extends from July 1, 2008 until June 30, 2009.

The budget is based on the real estate tax rate remaining at 70 cents per $100 of assessed value. Reassessments increased by an average 5.2 percent in the city.