Nibbling at tax crumbs

Herding sheep, gentle but recalcitrant sorts, generally requires the services of a dog with skills. How then to round up a farmer of sheep? That question, which surely has not pressed upon the minds of most Waynesboro property owners, is worth contemplating now. The tax dog is snarling.

The efficacy of Francis Chester in quieting such mongrels is debatable but not his spirit. The Churchville lawyer, who doubles as a sheep farmer, is best known these days for leading the revolt against a 27 percent average reassessment increase in Augusta County. A lawsuit Chester filed against supervisors is pending in Circuit Court.

His chances of winning appear remote. But appeals have lowered the average increase to 22 percent and supervisors have said they will lower the tax rate to offset the reassessment. The solution is imperfect – some people still will pay significantly more taxes because of reassessments far higher than the average – but better than the alternative of more taxes for all.

Ask property owners in Waynesboro. Reassessments in the city, conducted every two years instead of every four like the county, increased by an average of 5.3 percent. So while the furor raged in Augusta over taxes, here there were only scattered murmurs heard amid the chirping of crickets. That’s likely partially attributable to a presumption that proved fallible, namely that the council’s conservative bloc would vote to lower rates to offset the reassessment, just as county supervisors appear likely to do.

It turns out Waynesboro could use a man like Francis Chester, or perhaps a herder of cats, which is something like trying to draw together the three members of the council’s fractured conservative alliance. Mayor Tim Williams is the stray. He unveiled Thursday his intent to break from ostensible allies Vice Mayor Frank Lucente and Councilman Bruce Allen to side with their foes in keeping the tax rate at 70 cents per $100 of assessed value rather than lower it to 67 cents. That would equate to a tax increase under the reassessment.

“That’s the conservative way to go,” Williams declared. Well, he’s right. Except for the part about it being conservative. And the definite article. It’s a way to go.

Voters might tell Williams where to go, if ever another candidate can be found to run in Ward A.

In the meantime, here’s where Williams sees problems with the lower rate: it would require the city to slash another $558,000 after having cut more than $1 million from the budget already. Lucente believes this gap can be closed through savings on a tax rebate deal with the Town Centre, a deferment of city money to Waynesboro schools and by dipping into reserves. The latter option poses particular concerns in the minds of Williams and Councilwomen Lorie Smith and Nancy Dowdy. What if an emergency comes?

Further, Smith said, the tax increase that would flow from a reassessment would cost property owners the relative equivalent of a trip to McDonald’s each month. “My premise is,” she said, “I will give up a Big Mac and an order of fries and a soda” to avoid cuts to city schools and the city budget.

Her assertion about the size of the increase is true, to an extent. The tax bill on a home previously valued at the city median of $207,000 would increase by about $72 annually, or $6 a month, under the average reassessment. But it must be remembered that some reassessments came in far higher than the average, in the range of a third, in which cases the bite will be far deeper.

And Lucente makes another point. The city unemployment rate has reached 10.3 percent, the highest in roughly two decades. That’s the product of some of the town’s best-paid workers being laid off at Invista and other companies that either rely on the fabric maker or are in similar lines of business.

Williams, Smith and Dowdy all are right to be cautious about relying too heavily on reserves. But if several options can be combined to cover the cost of a reduced rate – the specifics of which can’t be known until the school board decides on a deferment – the new majority trio should at least consider it. Many property owners in this town are struggling in a way they never have before. The last thing they need is the tax dog yelping louder at their heels, even if he only wants another bite of their Big Macs.