In a successful compromise, while no one side gets everything that it wants, neither is any side left with nothing. In weaving a budget designed to keep vital services going while, at the same time, doing its best to lessen its impact on county taxpayers, the Gloucester Board of Supervisors crafted the best compromise it could in a bad situation.

Much of the increase was beyond the board’s control, driven by increases in such things as Virginia Retirement System, health insurance and life insurance rates. At the same time, Gloucester was faced with a projected decline in revenue.

If supervisors had vowed not to raise taxes, no matter what, the county would be facing layoffs and entire operations would be forced to shut down. There would be no money to cover capital improvement needs at all and utilities debt service would have to be paid for by cutting positions.

At the same time, the county and its employees certainly didn’t get everything that they could have expe...