April showers bring fiscal flowers

Spring sun shines on new budget

On Tuesday, April 7, the board of supervisors will vote on the 2009 tax rates, which are retroactive to January 1. The adoption of the tax rate in early April allows time to prepare and mail out tax bills due in early June.

The supervisors held a public hearing on an advertised tax rate of 55 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, a two cent increase over last year, on March 31. Only two citizens rose to protest the increase. This lack of comment is more the result of ignorance of the proposed increase rather than agreement with the rise, which amounts to an additional $20 tax for each $100,000 of assessed valuation.

At the hearing, interim county administrator Lane Ramsey presented a budget that was about $61 million instead of the approximately $57 million advertised.

The packet for tomorrow’s meeting, includes a cryptic memo from Ramsey to the supervisors stating that the rate to be voted on during the afternoon session will be determined following discussion at the morning workshop session. The packet may be viewed in its entirety at www.co.goochland.va.us click on supervisors and then packet. (Be advised that this is a large file best downloaded with a high-speed connection.)

Setting the tax rate is the most delicate part of the board’s duties. On the one hand, they must ensure that the health, safety and welfare needs of the citizens are met. On the other hand, they must be mindful of the burden that high tax rate place on citizens.

Local levies are the purest form of taxation. Local tax dollars stay close to home. They build and run schools, pay teachers, deputies and now some fire-rescue providers. Those salaries in turn find their way into local businesses that generate sales tax, some of which go back into county coffers.

Property tax dollars do not go to Richmond or Washington to be massaged and diluted by bureaucrats before, perhaps, trickling back in far smaller amounts.

Local taxes are the hardest to raise. People must write checks for those taxes, unlike payroll taxes, which earners never see. Also, local officials are far more accessible than those in Richmond or Washington.

Why do taxes increase? Probably because government is doing more than it should be. On the other hand, people demand more services from the government then complain because their taxes rise. They seem to think that the other guy’s taxes should go up to pay for what they want.

This year’s proposed tax rate may simply be a reflection of realities of past year fiscal shenanigans and needed to stay even. The two cent increase may well represent level funding.

Instead of determining a tax rate and then working backwards to make the budget numbers fit, as was done in the past, this year’s numbers may well reflect what the county will actually spend.
Ramsey began his government service as an accountant, a skill not possessed by anyone on the county staff, and is applying those skills to Goochland’s budget. This is a novel departure from past practices and is causing a lot of heartburn. As he pokes among the dank county budget processes, interesting creatures must be coming to light.

In the past, the supervisors eagerly accepted magical budgets divined by the former county administrator. Those budgets sailed though the dog and pony shows of public hearing and tax rate adoptions. When citizen attention turned to other things, supplemental appropriations were voted into place so that the bills, with the possible exception of those in the utility department, got paid.

So tomorrow we will see if the board is willing to acknowledge that they have been cluelessly voting on budgets that did not reflect reality in the past and change their ways. Or, will they seek cover and revert to the comfort of magical budgeting.

Sunshine can be painful to eyes long kept in the dark.