Notes from Albemarle's TAX INCREA$E "March Madness" Town Hall at Monticello H.S. (Thur

Perhaps March Madness bracket-watching, second and third jobs in motel laundry rooms and fast food kitchens, and rising gas prices kept a lot of Albemarle County residents away from Monticello High School Thursday night, the site of the Board of Supervisors’ most recent TAX INCREA$E Town Hall. Whatever the reason, the forum at MoHS certainly looked a lot more like a County staff meeting than a TEA Party gathering.

My final head count stopped at 33 with 22 being people I know are Albemarle County employees. This matches the same ratio (24:8) from Tuesday’s TAX INCREA$E Town Hall at Jack Jouett M.S.

Maybe the general public just doesn’t find a 32-minute Power Point performance by County Executive Tom Foley and an additional 21 minutes by School Finance Director Jackson Zimmerman as riveting as beer, pizza, and big screen hoops from the couch of their family room.

Regardless, March Madness — tax increase style — will conclude next month just like spring’s perennial basketball tournament with the crowning of one winner and lots of losers. The County budget wins. Taxpayer wallets lose.

Here’s what’s coming: a 3% real estate tax rate hike on top of an increase in real estate property reassessments. Oh, and annual vehicle registration fees are also going up again.

And as if ignoring a possible 84.4¢ tax rate today is no big whup, try a potential 92¢ on every $100 of real estate value in about five years. Might be time right now to become more aware of and involved with tax bracketology in addition to the hoops variety.

Here are some other observations from last night’s BOS TAX INCREA$E Town Hall at MoHS:

County Executive Tom Foley just can’t bring himself to use a slide that says Albemarle’s effective tax rate increase for FY2017 will be 4.07% if the current $375 million budget proposal is approved. He can’t bring himself to show a slide of what the tax bill will be on a median-priced Albemarle home in 2016. The slide is always about a lower-priced home from 2007. And he can’t bring himself to show a slide that calls a “pay raise” a pay raise. It’s always just a “market increase.”

Tom made several references once again to growth pressures that continue to impact Albemarle County’s budget. The problem is that he never shows a slide about the actual cost of population growth. Trust in the budget would be enhanced with some detailed slides and an occasional comment like: “This many people moved in and they cost us this much in tax dollars for these reasons.” At least Albemarle School Division presenters always show slides of how many new students have arrived, or are projected to arrive, and what this actually costs per pupil.

The same holds true for Tom’s constant referrals to something called “community aspirations” for which there is apparently a significant financial cost. At the TAX INCREA$E Town Hall at Jack Jouett Middle School on Tuesday night, I asked Tom where I could find a list of these “community aspirations” from his slides and who and how many County residents are aspiring to have their tax dollars spent on them. I was directed to the following County webpage for an answer: http://www.albemarle.org/department.asp?department=sp&relpage=18993.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find what I aspired to find. (I’ll have more to say on the “community aspirations” topic in a future Whatever Albemarle blog post.)

Here are some of my favorite quotes from last night’s TAX INCREA$E Town Hall at MoHS:

“We’ve started this year strengthening our economic development.” County Executive Tom Foley on what he says Albemarle is doing to take some of the financial pressure off residential property owners. The loss of the Deschutes Brewery economic development was last year.

“We brought forward a lean, needs-based request.”

School Division Finance Director Jackson Zimmerman on the Albemarle School Board’s funding request that is still $1 million short of what they want from taxpayers.

“We had to add some trailers, uh, modular classrooms at AHS.”

Zimmerman on the temporary solution to over-crowding at Albemarle High School.

Five of Albemarle’s six Democrat Supervisors were in attendance: Ann Mallek (White Hall), Liz Palmer (Samuel Miller), Rick Randolph (Scottsville), Norman Dill (Rivanna), and Diantha McKeel (Jack Jouett). Attendance wasn’t required for Supervisors, but again the proscribed rule was that they weren’t supposed to “engage” the public during the town hall. BOS Chairwoman Liz Palmer even reiterated this protocol at the beginning of the meeting, saying: “We’re just here to listen; we’re not going to be participating.” Ann and Norman decided to participate anyway. Ann shared a request by a constituent who doesn’t want $125,000 worth of taxpayer dollars spent on a County government efficiency study. Norman wanted to know, on behalf of one of his constituents, why there has been an increase in the number of County students needing special education services.

During the Q&A, there were three non-employee comments or questions. David Saunier identified himself as working for Central Virginia Restorative Justice and asked that the BOS restore his center’s County tax funding which was cut in the ABRT (Agency Budget Review Team) process. A woman asked whether the quality of Albemarle County’s healthcare coverage for employees had gone down as healthcare costs have gone up. One other man commented that he thought Albemarle was going to need to pass a general obligation referendum to cover future capital improvement needs. I don’t know whether to assume these three were just members of the general public, but I didn’t see them wearing County employee ID badges.

Here’s a question I had, but didn’t ask: Albemarle County has been publicizing its budget town halls as a chance to hear from the public. Why, then, at a 70-minute meeting did County staff (Tom and Jackson) speak for a combined 53 minutes of the 70?

Finally, one more quote we all got a kick out of:

“Thank you all, to you who were here for our County government meeting [LAUGHTER] and again for our couple citizens who are here as well.”

Tom Foley, at the end of the meeting, poking some fun at himself and the high number of County employees but few members of the public in attendance.