Albemarle TAX INCREA$E Town Hall: White Hall (Saturday, March 5, 2016)

White Hall Supervisor Ann Mallek (Democrat) held a District Meeting at the White Hall Community Center from 10 to noon with around 20 people and an NBC29 reporter in attendance. Neither Ann nor the other five Board of Supervisors (BOS) members nor Albemarle County staff are calling these meetings "TAX INCREA$E Town Halls." This is what I am calling them.

The recommended increase in Albemarle County Executive Tom Foley's proposed FY2017 Budget is 2.5¢ on the current 81.9¢ real estate tax rate. If approved by the BOS, this would be a 3% increase to 84.4¢. Remember, though, this would be on top of whatever re-assessment increase you received on your property. (In my case, my property assessment went up 1.2%. If a 3% tax rate increase is added on, my overall tax increase would be 4.2%.)

You won't hear Supervisors or County staff talk about this overall tax increase number. They prefer to talk about pennies on the tax rate. The true increased cost to taxpayers is always a combination of the tax rate hike and the reassessment. This is why when you see comparative tax rate charts provided by County government officials, they should also be showing you charts of median property values at the same time. This is something they don't like to do and don't routinely do.

Here are some of my notes from Ann's TAX INCREA$E Town Hall. Don't take any of this as gospel truth. This is just some of what I thought I heard and my "take" on what I heard. None of this is in any particular priority order. If something is factually incorrect, it's not on purpose. Ann or anyone else is free to write whatever they want wherever and whenever they want in rebuttal.

Ann opened by talking about Albemarle's Land Use discount tax program which began in 1973. She said: "I will do whatever I can to make sure it’s protected.”

There were several comments and questions about the direction in which Albemarle County's solid waste and recycling programs may be heading. Some of the questions focused on why Albemarle County is going to spend money upgrading facilities and systems at the Ivy dump (Materials Utilization Center, or MUC, in governmental lingo). Some in the audience said private haulers should be used rather than spending tax dollars to compete with private trash and recycling businesses. Ann commented that there are folks who want to take their own trash to a center rather than pay $25 per month for trash pick-up at their residence. Ann said: "[Improvements at the] Ivy Center seemed the best way to me to solve the problem. We’re trying to improve just slightly the program at the Ivy MUC. Most of my citizens have said keep it at Ivy.” When asked how much taxpayer money was going into improvements at the Ivy dump, Ann said: “$1.8 million is the last figure I heard. And I anticipate that the City will join us in a few years. I think it’s reasonable for people to have a place to take a bag of trash once a month [rather than paying for monthly trash service]. I think the majority will end up coming to Ivy by private services. I’m not interested in competing with private enterprise, but there is a gap that we need to address.”

There were several comments from those in attendance who want protections for the current rural character of the White Hall area. Some suggested looking into historic district designation as a way of protecting the "Crossroads" area from over development and the proliferation of home occupation businesses and traffic from tourism-related businesses. A suggestion was also made that Albemarle County should be looking into ways to protect the rural beauty along Route 810 between White Hall and Crozet. There were also questions about what studies are being done to find out how much ground water is available in the western part of the County since there seem to be a lot of wells being drilled in rural areas for new homes.

Ann asked everyone to indicate what they thought about several potential County priorities she listed on several sheets of paper. Among the results were the following:

There were several requests for no further increase in the property tax rate.

Ann was asked what were people in the western end of the County getting out of tax increases? She said the most visible thing was increased public safety from the police department. It sounded like several people in the audience didn't believe her.

There were several remarks about continual pay raises for County employees when the private sector, especially those living on Social Security, were receiving no increases. Ann said that the proposed 2% pay raises for County employees would require one cent of the 2.5¢ proposed tax rate increase. She added: "The first thing to go has to be the pay raise." Then, she added: "The $200,000 person we have in the County, she does not need a raise." Ann did not identify the woman nor the position.

There was little support for the construction of a new high school. Suggestions were made to build up on County high schools in need of more classroom space rather than taking up more land for ground level additions. When asked about the status of a new high school building in the northern growth area of Albemarle County, Ann said: "It is floating in la-la land." When asked for a price tag, Ann replied: "Only thing I've heard is a wild $70 million." Regarding the possibility of school redistricting to ease overcrowding at some schools, Ann said: "I was surprised that the [committee's] study recommendations were completely ignored by the School Board.”

Ann was critical of the increasing costs for fire/rescue personnel in the County and that fewer volunteers were being recruited and used than was originally represented to the BOS. When asked why volunteer fire/rescue departments couldn't have similarly nice buildings as Albemarle's career fire/rescue facilities, Ann replied: "I was apoplectic at the price of the Pantops rescue squad building."

Ann was asked about the status of a potential "rain tax" assessed on the square footage of impermeable services and roof tops in the County. She said the discussion may come up again in the spring. She added that the County had earned more credits than originally anticipated toward Chesapeake Bay mandates, so the "rain tax" issue is currently not as urgent.

One member of the audience made three suggestions for cost savings in the budget: do an in-house efficiency study instead of paying a consultant to do so, sell off some county vehicles, and stop providing tax dollars to private, non-profit agencies.

The County's next TAX INCREA$E Town Hall is another meeting by Supervisor Mallek on Monday evening, March 7, 2016 at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria of the Broadus Wood Elementary School in Earlysville.

Meanwhile the Albemarle BOS will meet for a 3 p.m. work session on the FY2017 Budget on Tuesday, March 8, 2016 in the County Office Building (C.O.B.) in downtown Charlotesville. It's anticipated that the Board will decide on a budget and tax rate to take to its March 30, 2016 Public Hearing. No public comment is taken at work sessions.