With one member absent, Roanoke County's board of supervisors came to a consensus during a work session Tuesday to lower the county's real estate tax rate by a penny to $1.11 per $100 valuation.

The majority of those in attendance -- Windsor Hills Supervisor Joe McNamara was absent from the afternoon session -- also agreed that the county should expand its real estate tax-relief program for the elderly and disabled.

Hollins District Supervisor Richard Flora objected, saying that "people who are working for a living ... having to raise their children, have to pay all their taxes."

The other supervisors, however, insisted that the county needed to do more to help those on fixed incomes, particularly during a year when real estate assessments have risen by an average of 5.85 percent for residential and commercial property.

The county now effectively freezes the real estate assessments of some residents older than 65 or who are disabled.

"We've got to take care of our aged," said Catawba District Supervisor Butch Church.

He argued for raising the personal income exemption from $50,000 to $55,600 per year and the net-worth limitation from $100,000 -- not including the taxpayer's home and 10 acres -- to $125,000.

The increased exemptions would cost the county about $25,000 in tax revenue.

The county will give up a total of $662,000 that it would have collected if the rate remained at $1.12. Lowering the real estate tax rate for everyone would reduce increased revenue for the 2006-07 fiscal year starting July 1 from $7.8 million to about $7.1 million.

The total county budget would be about $151 million and include raises of 4 percent for county employees.

The county school system is expected to receive some $62 million from the county in a budget that won't be finalized until next month.

In an earlier session, the supervisors were told that a 1-cent drop in the tax rate would come to a savings of $10 a year for the owner of a home valued at $100,000.

Between increased local tax revenue and anticipated raises in state revenue for schools, the county was looking at "$16 million in new revenue, and all we want to do is spend, spend, spend," said Flora, in supporting the tax rate decrease.

"It's time to give something back" to taxpayers, said board Chairman Michael Wray, the Cave Spring District representative.

The budget process involves "trying to give a little bit of something to everybody," said Vinton District Supervisor Mike Altizer. "We're trying to do the best we can for the whole cross section."

Even though county tax revenues will be up by more than $7 million, the supervisors still will be unable to fully fund all the requests that have been made by county departments and outside agencies for the coming year.

County staffers are still trying to figure out, for instance, where to get the money to pay for some basic items such as increased utility costs for the coming year, Administrator Elmer Hodge said.

A final budget will be presented at the April 11 board meeting. As the county's budget deliberations come down to the wire, board members said they wanted to pull a couple of major items out of the staff's budget recommendation for further discussion at later sessions.

One of them is a $30,000 appropriation for a regional industrial park in Pulaski County, which Hodge is recommending be eliminated. The other is Explore Park.

Church objected to the inclusion of $500,000 for Explore, given that the county's formal agreement to operate the park ends in June and Florida developer Larry Vander Maten is in the process of determining whether he can come up with a viable plan to develop the park into an overnight family tourist destination.

"Larry Vander Maten and company should be required to put some of their own money on the table," Church insisted, saying he could not support putting so much more money into the park.

Altizer, however, argued that the park must be kept open to protect the $2.5 million investment the county has made there over the past five years and to protect the exhibits from deterioration and vandalism while Vander Maten continues his study.

Altizer said the park's manager, Debbie Pitts, already has cut its budget to the bone -- its employees are getting only 2 percent raises -- and that the county should know by January whether Vander Maten will be able to develop the park. He has an option on a 50-year lease from the Virginia Recreational Facilities Authority that must be exercised by June 2007.