Fayette County commissioners are digging into a proposed $48.6 million budget for fiscal year 2000 that would hold the line on tax rates with no increase anticipated.

Meanwhile, a committee of employees studying methods of granting pay raises is under the gun to meet commission mandates in time for adoption of the budget.

Projected expenditures in the proposed budget are 3.4 percent higher than in the adjusted FY1999 budget, about $1.6 million.

Commissioners will have a series of work sessions before conducting public hearings on the document June 10 and 24 at 7 p.m. Plans are to adopt a budget to guide county spending through June 30, 2000, at the June 24 meeting.

Among "challenges" listed by county administrator Billy Beckett in his introductory summary of the budget is the need to grant salary increases for county workers each year, rather than facing huge increases every few years when independent studies show salaries here lagging behind those of other county governments.

But a proposed new system of granting yearly merit increases, offered last week by a committee of key staff people, was unacceptable to commissioners.

"I am a firm believer in rewarding the people who are doing the job and not rewarding those who don't," said commission Chairman Harold Bost. He said the employee compensation committee's recommendation would give merit increases to those whose work is merely satisfactory, or in need of improvement.

Personnel director Connie Boehnke said the committee was suggesting granting small increases to all satisfacmendation along those lines and report to the Board of Commissioners at its June 10 meeting.

Other challenges in the budget, said Beckett, include a last-minute request by the Sheriff's Department for an additional $300,000. Commissioners said the sheriff will have to justify that request during their budget work sessions.

The board will decide dates and times for the work sessions during its next business meeting, May 27 at 7 p.m.

Among new spending proposed for 2000 are 29 new employees, including nine in the Sheriff's Department, plus continued funding for planning and construction of a new jail and judicial complex. Also, the county will have unpredictable costs associated with closing its old landfill on First Manassas Mile Road.

The county also will lose revenue this year as its homestead exemption, a tax exemption for owner-occupied homes, continues to rise. This is the third year of a $645,000 reduction in property taxes through the exemption.