The Real Estate Tax rate that will be advertised will be $1.15.5 this year. Understand that once the rate is advertised, it may not go higher but it can go lower. This seems high and it is – with good reason:
In the last General Assembly scrum, the law regarding when localities are required to advertise their tax rate was changed. This change required advertisement far in advance (4 weeks I believe) of any public hearings on a real estate tax increase. For this to happen, the Council had to pick a rate last night – after only having had 2 budget meetings.
In some years, this short schedule is not a big deal but the Fire levy is a major change for the City and the Council hasn’t formally approved it yet. However, we did vote to approve the hiring of new fire fighters. This being the case, it seemed wise to pick a rate that would allow us to hire fire fighters even if the fire levy doesn’t make it through the process. Of course, w/o the fire levy hiring the firemen costs twice as much as that money gets split with the schools.
For my part, I would be surprised if we end up with a rate of $1.15.5 but anything is possible. Point is, it is simply too early in the process to say with any certainty what the eventual rate will be.
UPDATE: Here is a web page that explains what is going on.
March 13, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Andy,
How was almost ten cents added to the rate? At the meeting I attended the City Managers’ budget was 98 plus the 10 cents fire levy. I might be off by a penny or two, but I do not recall the 1.15 rate being mentioned at all.
Can you please keep in mind the money y’all are talking about does not belong to the City Council, but to us, the Citizens of the City, and we simply cannot keep funding out of control spending by people who are out of touch with the real World.
I would suggest the City Council change the funding formula for the school system, and use the savings from that to fund the new firemen and other public safety programs.
I hate to sound so harsh, but this is ridicules to talk about such an increase in the tax rate.
March 14, 2008 at 7:20 am
Citizen:
If the council approves the Fire levy and the Manager’s budget, there will be an effective real estate tax rate of $1.08 (.98 base rate + .10 fire levy) – just as you stated.
If we do not approve the Fire levy the money to pay the fire fighters has to come from the general fund. This costs twice as much (split with schools) so we would need a much higher tax rate ($1.12 actually) but there would be no .10 Fire levy.
It is complicated – I’m going to put together a web page to explain it all.
March 14, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Andy,
Thanks, and please do. Again, we need to do something about the school budget formula if they get a cut of every tax increase even if the tax increase is not directed or even concerns the schools.
March 14, 2008 at 10:30 pm
FYI – VML e-mails to Virginia local jurisdictions in the past two days:
– “… the General Assembly is poised to expand state programs and add
new ones at the expense of local aid. Most local aid is tied to programs
that the state requires local governments to offer. The upshot,
therefore, may be that the state is balancing its budget and expanding
its services by passing the buck to local governments for making
service cuts or raising taxes.”
– ” The budget cuts $50 million a year in aid to local governments. This
amounts to a 4.2% cut.”
March 15, 2008 at 9:42 am
I’d like to see some may of balancing the school’s budget across the census of school attendee’s. Its just not fair the the young and the elderly and the single have to fund something they can’t use. Nor is it fair that every homeowner pays the same into the school budget, when one house has 0 or 1 or 2 kids in school and others have 5 or 6 or more. And no, I don’t care about their legal status, I care about their taxpaying status.
March 15, 2008 at 10:15 am
Holy social contract David B. Are you for real? What happens when a legal resident can’t afford to go to public school? Do we only educate the ones who can afford it?
On another note, I am a strapping 30 year old man who owns 3 firearms. Can I elect not to pay for police and take my chances?
March 16, 2008 at 4:27 pm
When I moved to Manassas in 2000 my real estate taxes were approx.$1600. Now I’m paying $3700,now I’m not a financial guy, but that is about a 225% increase over 7 years. I don’t believe the rate of inflation has been much more than 3-5%.What was done with the money throughout the big assessment gain years? Is there a rainy day fund? I believe the builders of those large buildings in town with no parking should be paying for a good portion of the new parking garage. The council is killing the average middle class family.There needs some serious belt tightening and lets get back to basics.Thank you
March 26, 2008 at 3:17 pm
No, Cleeeeeeetus, we need a better formula for school funding than the existing “set in stone” revenue sharing agreement. That’s what I’m saying.
March 26, 2008 at 3:20 pm
PWC set their max rate yesterday at $1.00/hundred (versus last year’s rate of $.78/hundred). Seems to ME that MUST be the rate not inclusive of their Fire and Rescue levy?
March 26, 2008 at 4:20 pm
How would you suggest we change the school funding formula?
March 30, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Andy,
First off I would change it to avoid the situation with regard to the fire levy or increasing the tax rate to cover not just the cost of the new fire department hires, but to give the school board their share of the general funds generated by that tax increase. To me it just makes no sense whatsoever the school board gets a cut of any tax increase even if the tax increase is dedicated to another cost not even associated with the school system.
I would also ditch the percentage of the overall general budget the school system receives. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the school board is the only department/cost that seems to have their own set percentage of the general budget. Again, to me that does not make sense, the school board should have to justify their expenditures before getting money.
April 3, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I don’t know Andy, I didn’t take much econ beyond the 101 level. 🙂
I just think the existing fixed formula is seriously flawed. Maybe in the world time in which it was created it made sense (there was far less demand for non-school City services in those days), but it doesn’t seem to now. As it is, one of two things happens:
a) Council decides a funding level for the schools (per the school board’s approved budget) and ALL OTHER City budgetary items are thus restricted to not exceed 46% of the revenue needed to fund that school budget. Basically once the school board budget is approved and Council agrees to it, you’re locked in on what there will be to fund the rest of government.
or
b) Every extra dollar Council needs for non-school funding requires taxes be raised by more than double that. Nice windfall for the schools really, but I would argue its a high burden for the taxpayer to bear.
I’m not at all advocating we DECREASE schools funding (teachers are sadly underpaid everywhere), we just need to break it away from a fixed percentage of general fund revenues.
PWC has been able to artificially keep their “per hundred” tax rate low because their F&R Levy is tacked on top of that. I don’t know if PWC has a similar “revenue sharing” agreement with their school board? A levy (or whatever fancy term they’re calling it this week) seems the only way to get the Public Safety funding increases that are needed RIGHT NOW, as that’s outside of general fund revenues. But I fear if the flawed revenue sharing system in place now isn’t fixed, at some near future budget cycle someone else we be asking for “their” levy too.