The Prince William County Board of Supervisors reinforced their county priorities this week in transportation, public safety and education. The supervisors reorganized the county’s 2004-2008 strategic plan to prepare for reduced revenues coming in for the fiscal 2008 budget.

Following the same trend as the rest of the region, property assessments are estimated to drop 5 percent in the county, said Craig Gerhart, county executive. The board’s “tasks are made easier by taking things out, not adding things,” he said. About 491 houses were sold in the county in October this year, compared to 983 homes in October 2005 — a 50 percent reduction, said Jill Landsman, a spokeswoman for the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors. The 2006 homes sold at an average $398,839, compared to $422,333 last year — a 5.6 percent decrease, she said. Also of note, the 2006 homes were on the market an average of 102 days, compared to 35 days, Landsman said.

“There is going to be a disparity between the assessed value and the market value. It is totally logically that the assessments are going to be higher” than market value, she said.

The board did not remove anything from the strategic plan at Tuesday’s meeting, but reprioritized items, said Supervisor Martin Nohe, who represents the Coles District.

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“We removed so much last year that is was already fairly lean. ... Low priorities might end up being the first things to go, but we didn’t necessarily remove big chunks of it quite yet, because I don’t think we really have a clear picture of what will happen in next year’s budget,” he said.

Low priority items include community maintenance initiatives, he said. The board has just begun the meeting process where it discusses county initiatives, programs and policy in creating the budget. The budget is usually presented to the board at the end of February for financial discussions.

cgoodman@dcexaminer.com