Lynchburg, VA - Like many localities across Virginia, The City of Lynchburg expects next year's budget to be a tight one. Tuesday night, city council heard the drastic steps City Manager Kimball Payne is taking right now. He presented his cost-cutting measures at the meeting.

He says sales tax revenues for the current year could be a million dollars under projection. Not only that, next year he's expecting $7-million less in state money. So, he's responding with bold steps to the current budget.

Hiring for all positions is frozen. Overtime will only be used in extreme circumstances, and only first-responders will be able to take home city vehicles. Looking forward to next year, Payne says there will be no pay increases, in fact, city workers may see reductions in pay. He says layoffs are possible, but only as a last resort.

Kimball Payne, Lynchburg City Manager - "One of the things we're going to have to look at next year is where can we reduce services. We don't provide a lot of services that are beyond what people expect. I'm not sure we provide any that are beyond what people expect. So cutting back on those is going to have some impact."

Also on Council's plate, a request by Liberty University (web) for the city to give up a right-of-way running across Liberty's campus. The University wants Lynchburg to give them a right-of-way that runs from Ericcson Drive on Liberty's campus all the way to the railroad tracks near Ward's Road.

The City has long term plans of using the right-of-way to connect Wards Road with Route 460, but Liberty doesn't want that to happen.

Lee Beaumont, Liberty University - "We don't want to have another public road running through our campus when we've worked so hard to make it a pedestrian friendly, mass transit friendly campus."

Councilman Turner Perrow, Jr., Lynchburg City Council (web) - "If we can't afford to do the work, or we're not going to do it for the next 20 years, we might as well give up the right of way. But if it's something we can act on, and it's worthwhile to the citizens of Lynchburg, then we need to preserve it and we need to act on it."

Council will look at this issue again at January 27th work session. City Council also voted to look into selling about 7 acres of City-owned land to a private developer near Link Road.

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