Supervisors, take a stand
Published: March 5, 2009
Updated: March 12, 2009
Wendell Coleman says what he cannot believe. Preparing to make deep incisions in the Augusta County budget with a March 11 showdown over the reassessment looming, the Wayne District supervisor told The News Virginian on Monday that debate over the latter will pale next to the former. “The general reassessment will be a cakewalk compared to budget cuts,” Coleman said. He either has missed something or he has a septic drain field in Crimora – Augusta’s version of Jersey swampland – he’d like to sell to us.
We aren’t buying it. Neither are Augusta taxpayers.
They are preparing for what Lynn Mitchell calls on her SWAC Girl blog a “tax revolt tea party” Wednesday at the supervisors meeting, during which Churchville lawyer Francis Chester plans to present petitions demanding a rollback of the reassessment to 2005. Property owners are predictably angry that values have increased by an average of more than a fourth. Supervisors like Coleman are unpredictably deaf to the cries of outrage.
Apart from the Gang of Six, a seventh supervisor, Tracy Pyles of the Pastures District, has been working feverishly to sift reason from thick obduracy, so far to no avail. He backs Chester’s call, but has been rebuffed by the Gang on legal grounds. State code forbids a rollback.
So Pyles has scurried about seeking legal avenues where none is seen. State Sen. Emmett Hanger provided one, but perhaps for a later day, by sponsoring a bill that would allow Augusta to extend its reassessment period from four years to five or six. That legislation sailed through both the House and Senate and awaits only the signature of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.
Trouble is, it wouldn’t take effect in July and by then, under the law, Augusta will have approved its reassessment, state officials and county Attorney Patrick Morgan say. Now Pyles has unearthed a section in state code that allows counties to set reassessments based on fiscal rather than calendar years, meaning the county could extend its reassessment to July, allowing for the new law to take effect and a delay in new values.
Problem solved? Well, no. State tax officials say the disputed reassessment must pass. It is expected to become official Monday when the book of new values is to be certified by the board of assessors and turned over to the commissioner of the revenue. This is part of what the Gang of Six has taken to referring to as the process, which they say must be allowed to work, an indication that the Gang itself is disinclined to work. What it means is that by the time the Tea Party kicks off Wednesday, the deal might well be done.
The Gang sees a ready out in the whole mess and it is one sure to be employed. The Gang, with Pyles likely having little choice but to go along, will lower tax rates. This is a move Pyles, along with us, initially supported, and we still would absent alternatives. But Pyles echoes a lament cited in this space: “We can’t change this by fixing the tax rate. More than half of the citizens will be hit by this and hit hard.”
We’re not so sure about the proportions. Our very rough calculations have found that taxes on more than 7,000 properties still would increase by more than a fourth, while more than half would see no increase or a cut.
What is needed is what we’ve called for before, a change in state law that allows supervisors more flexibility in determining how and whether to proceed with a reassessment in a given year.
Supervisors might get just that kind of change if they demonstrated courage now. A vote to at least delay the reassessment might provide valuable time to more thoroughly check the accuracy of the numbers. The larger benefit would be that it would signal to state lawmakers that the law needs to be modified to provide greater control to local officials, to whom it properly belongs, especially on the subject of property taxes.
The Gang cowers conveniently, hedging bets as they study the budget. Let us inform them: the people can bear county budget cuts. Increased taxes are another story. We urge county supervisors, take a stand against flawed law, and perhaps a flawed reassessment. Taxpayers will rally behind you, and so will we.
Reader Reactions
There is an important factor about this reassessment that many are overlooking. The latest assessment found land within Augusta County has risen in value far more than has residential property and homes. Therefore, if the Supervisors act as expected and set the tax rate as low as they can consistent with meeting critical county needs, landowners will almost certainly see a significant increase. Homeowners in most areas, however, will see a drop in their tax bill. If, as Chester and his cohorts want, the 2005 assessment is used, taxes will probably remain about as they have been. That’s just simple math. Put another way, these protesting homeowners are actually fighting for higher taxes. Strange.
Like Chester, I own some land and my taxes will go up under the new assessment. I don’t like that and will watch closely how the Supervisors craft their budget. However, if my land is worth more now relative to residential property, then it is only fair that I pay more taxes. That’s also just logic, and it’s the fundamental idea behind real estate taxes anywhere. The only real question is whether the assessors screwed up relative values of the different types of land use in their findings. That’s what needs to be probed. Nothing else is really relevant. I found the assessors to be rather sloppy and prone to minor errors, but I have not seen evidence that they made massive errors. Even if their percentages overall are off, the Supervisors will set a budget in this politcally precarious year as low as they can, so the percentage won’t make that much of a difference. Again, the only important thing is how the types of land use - primarily residential versus open land - compare.
It will be interesting to see the outcome.
How can you ask someone to take a stand when they have no backbone to hold them up. Tracy Pyles is only one that has the decency to stand up and say it is wrong. The rest don’t want to admit that they were took in by a fly-by- night assessor who has a shoddy track record to begin with. I would like to know who was responsible for contracting this company without checkin out some of their past work.
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