Per Capita: City Court Costs High, School Costs Low

In 2010 the city of Fredericksburg paid more in per capita expenditures to operate its court system than other similarly sized Virginia cities, according to an analysis conducted by city staff of a state local government budget report. Conversely, the analysis shows that the city ranks near the bottom among similarly sized cities in per capita expenditures for schools.

The analysis is based on data in the 2010 Comparative Report of Local Government Revenues and Expenditures prepared by Virginia's Auditor of Public Accounts, which attempts to compare the budgets of every locality in the state using uniform financial reporting standards. That report was released in late February. During its March 22 council work session, City Council had asked city staff to analyze the findings of the report with an eye towards comparing the city's books to other localities which share similar characteristics to Fredericksburg. 

The analysis conducted by city staff compared Fredericksburg with seven other Virginia cities: Winchester, Petersburg, Staunton, Colonial Heighs, Fairfax, Manassas and Salem. The cities were chosen for a combined variety of reasons, ranging from population size, proximity to Washington D.C., and proximity of interstate highways. 

On March 29, city staff presented their analysis to the City Council during a special work session on next year's budget.

"I would recommend extreme caution in drawing conclusions based upon the data presented in this report," wrote City Manager Beverly Cameron in a memo distributed with the findings of the analysis. 

For instance, the guidelines of the auditor's report make a city's contribution to regionally funded agencies look much larger than any city individually pays for those services. Instead of reporting a city's individual share of expenditures for regional agencies, the auditor's report lists the full cost of the regional agency.

Cameron noted that the state report shows that Fredericksburg spent $14.3 million on corrections in 2010. In reality, the city only funded that agency to the tune of $4 million in 2010.

Also skewing some comparisons, say city staff, is that localities are allowed some amount of leeway in how some programs can be classified. For instance, the data for  Fredericksburg's Fire and Rescue Service does not include EMS service. Instead, that is classified with "other protection" along with the municipal E911 center. Other cities might have classified those expenses differently. 

Still, according to the city's analysis of the data, Fredericksburg spent nearly $88 per capita last year to operate the municipal court system, including the circuit court clerk and Sheriff's department, at a total expenditure of $2.1 million. The per capita expenditure is nearly $16 more than Winchester ($72 per capita, $1.3 million), which operates a regional court system, splitting the cost among surrounding localities. 

On the flip side of that are expenditures for the city school system. The comparative analysis found Fredericksburg's education expenditures broke down to $1,510 per capita at 36.6 million in total city school expenditures in 2010. This puts the city above Staunton, but below the other localities the city's analysis looked at. 

The full memo distributed to City Council is included in this article in the gallery to the right. Also included in this article is a PDF spreadsheet of the data tables included in the memo ranked by per-capita costs.