Tax relief for homeowners floated at James City board of supervisors meeting Tuesday
County staff float $6 million in spending cuts, but also millions in new taxes as other options.
It’s April 29. James City County supervisors seem inclined to lower the tax impact on homeowners…Colonial Williamsburg Foundation changes CEO’s…our Town Hall with the school superintendent will livestream tonight…man arrested in Toano shootout.
James City County supervisors seem to be building a consensus toward more tax relief for real estate owners, although they differed on the specifics. And they disagree on raising the meals tax by 50%.
At the supervisors’ business meeting Tuesday, Chair John J. McGlennon said he could support a real estate tax credit this year, while adopting the county administrator’s proposal to lower the tax rate from 83 cents to 80 cents per $100 of assessed value.
He also said the county should look at revising the tax forgiveness programs for senior citizens, which has not been revised in several years.
Stonehouse Member Barbara E. Null said she wanted to cut the real estate tax rate further to 75 cents.
And all the supervisors expressed concern at the wide range of reassessment values experienced by taxpayers who spoke against the budget at their last public hearing April 14. Some landowners got assessments that increased their land value – and taxes – by more than 60%, while other homeowners in the county had single digit increases.
Many of the taxpayers who spoke out April 14 were retirees who said their cost of living increases from Social Security could not keep pace with rising taxes.
Vice Chair Ruth Larson said she empathized with property owners who saw a dramatic jump in value in one year. Larson did not express an opinion on what she thinks the real estate tax rate should be.
“We just have a perfect storm of dramatically increasing house prices and...assessments that are just catching up to house prices,” agreed Powhatan Member Tracy Wainwright, who said she would like to see a 78-cent tax rate.
Jamestown District Member Jim Icenhour said he prefers a tax rate of 79 cents, but would support an 80-cent rate with a two-cent tax credit for the first year, which would reduce the effective rate to 78 cents .
County Administrator Scott Stevens presented a list of county operating expenses that could be trimmed by 10 percent, saving $6 million from the budget, the equivalent of 3 cents on the dollar for the tax rate. The areas he proposed did not include personnel or outside payments including schools, which together comprise 90% of county spending.
On the other side of the ledger, county staff presented the supervisors with several additional taxes they could add on top of the meals tax increase.
Sharon McCarthy, director of financial and management services, said the legislature had approved a law that would allow local governments to add 1% to the sales tax to pay for school construction. That would bring in $5 million next year and allow the county to avoid borrowing $44 million for projects slated for the Williamsburg-James City County schools over the next five years, she said.
The county would need to put that tax to a referendum.
The county can also bring in from $1 million to $10 million a year from an admissions tax on Busch Gardens and other events, McCarthy said. She said the proposed increase in meals taxes, to 6%, would be less than neighboring Williamsburg’s 6.5%.
Economic experts generally agree that sales and meals taxes are a regressive form of taxation that disproportionately impact lower income households, because they spend most of their income on daily life.
Null said she opposed raising the meals tax, saying “people are taxed enough already,.. we just keep putting these little things in and they add up to a lot.”
Wainwright also opposed adding a meals tax, saying that when combined with sales tax and the local tourism promotion tax the total tab on a meal out was 13%.
She said she had heard from local small restaurants that their customers said they would have to cut dining out if the tax goes up. When her family of six goes out to dine, Wainwright added, the taxes mean “we are paying for a seventh meal…it’s a significant hit.”
In the end, the supervisors agreed to keep the meeting open and reconvene May 5 to consider options before voting on a budget the following week
Don’t miss tonight’s town hall with W-JCC Schools Superintendent Daniel Keever
Williamsburg Watch will livestream the town hall Wednesday night from 7-8 pm on this page and the Substack App.
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