A small crowd composed mostly of teachers turned out Monday for the Mathews County Board of Supervisors’ public hearing on the proposed 2018 county budget.

The teachers were there to protest the budget, which includes an additional $50,000 for the schools to help offset retirement and insurance costs rather than the increase of $679,951 the schools asked for this year.

Mathews County Administrator Mindy Conner gave a brief presentation on the budget before the hearing began. She said that the $23,612,277 total budget is slightly less than last year, reflecting expenditures on grant-funded capital projects.

Conner explained that the driver behind this year’s budget is the real estate assessment, which showed a $67 million decline in the value of property countywide. She attributed the decline to a depressed real estate market and the impact of environmental regulations on property values.

Real estate accounts for 88 percent of the revenue the county takes in, said Conner...