Citizen Tom

The story about taxes in Prince William County is a complex one. Due to rapid growth, we have to pay for rapidly growing services. That includes our school system, roads, and police stations and so forth. So no matter what, we are going to pay. The question is how much. What should our property tax rate be?

Two Conservatives leaves no doubt he is unhappy with the latest decision by the Board of County Supervisors.

You will read tomorrow about the “compromise” $1.00 tax rate. Don’t be fooled.

May and Nohe should be ashamed. They both earlier had supported a $1.00 rate, May as a “compromise”, and Nohe because I presume he can only deal with whole dollar amounts

But they proposed that rate when we thought assessments were down 16%. At that time, the $1.01 rate was seen as an 8% increase, while a $1.00 rate would be a little over 7%.
Today, we learned that the assessments were only down 15%. Also, the School board miraculously found that they didn’t need as much money as they INSISTED they needed just 3 weeks ago. (from here)

Is Charles right? Should we have lower rate? The fact of the matter is that there is no simple answer. Property tax collections depend upon the assessed value times the rate, and property values are sagging. The Washington Times reports a 25 percent drop in Prince William County (here) over the last year. That is not good news. How will that affect assessments in 2009?

Property values are assessed every January, and these values have been varying wildly. For example, in 2006, my home was assessed at $438,900. In 2008, the assessed value was $324,200. You can review the assesment of your own home here.

The budget story, however, has just begun. The tax rate the BOCS set on Monday (see here, here and here) is the advertised tax rate. We still have the following events in the future (from here).

• Public Hearing for FY07 Budget, Monday, April 3, at 7:30 p.m. at the Dr. A.J. Ferlazzo Building.
• Public Hearing for FY07 Budget, Wednesday, April 5, at 7:30 p.m. at Stonewall Middle School.
• County Executive’s Budget Recap, Tuesday, April 11, at 2 p.m. in the Board Chamber of the McCoart Building.
• Board of County Supervisors Budget Markup, Tuesday, April 18, at 2 p.m. in the Board Chamber of the McCoart Building.
• Board of County Supervisors Adopts FY07 Fiscal Plan and FY07-12 CIP, Tuesday, April 25, at 2 p.m. in the Board Chamber of the McCoart Building. (wrong year ;-( )

Unfortunately, the Republicans on the BOC do not have a cohesive coalition. The three low tax Republicans and three “moderates” are not working together, and that bodes ill. Stewart, Stirrup, Covington, Nohe, and May, at least, should be able to work together most of the time (See BOCS profiles here.). May has advertised himself as budget conscious. As a businessman, Nohe should know how to conserve money.

With property values falling, the BOCS has a distinct problem. When taxpayers are taking a hit in their pocketbooks, they have every right to expect their government to sacrifice something too. These five gentlemen are all Republicans and usually allies. Unless they want the opposition and a liberal news media to find joy in their divisions, they should work to together to do two things:

• Jointly target and remove any fat they can find in the county’s budget.
• Provide comparisons with other counties in the area (and not just big spending Northern Virginia either). There is plenty of stuff in the budget to talk about besides the funding required to discourage illegal immigrants from coming into the county.

Comparisons with other counties, such as Stafford, Loudoun and Fauquier, should either help to alleviate taxpayer concerns that Prince William has its budget under control or provide ammunition for reductions.

Note that this web page (here) provides the proposed budget.

Other Views

Double Whammy for Prince William County Homeowners – Howling Latina gloats.

Guest Columnist – Thoughts on PWC Budget – Virginia Virtucon has thoughts on reduced enrollment.

Loudoun County Taxpayers Paying A High Price For Illegal … — Meanwhile novatownhall blog considers the cost of ESL.