Charlottesville City Council voted 4-0 on Monday to adopt a $253 million general fund budget based on revenues powered by an increase in all four of the taxes under control of locally elected officials.
Council adopted the budget after a public hearing on a 20 cent increase in the personal property tax rate that was not included as part of the budget recommended by City Manager Sam Sanders in early March. Councilor Natalie Oschrin raised the idea on April 1 to signal the city’s desire to deprioritize automobile usage.
No one spoke about the public hearing required for the tax rate increase. The legally mandated hearings had already been held for the two cent increase in the real estate tax, the one percent increase in the lodging tax rate, and a half percent increase in the meals tax. The latter had been anticipated to be at a full percentage point increase but was lowered due to a combination of around $600,000 in additional personal property tax revenue and revenue adjustments.
Though no one spoke at the official public hearing, one person did make a comment at the regular public comment. For many years, Downing Smith appeared frequently and returned to weigh in on one of those taxes.
“My property taxes have gone up 50 percent in the last five years and they’re going to go up ten percent this year,” Smith said. “So in ten years, that means my real property taxes will have doubled. You all talk about sustainable housing, affordable housing. You aren’t getting any more housing if you keep on driving up these rates. The only people who are going to be able to afford homes are the very rich and developers.”
Smith said could reduce the budget by not giving money to nonprofit agencies.
Much of the conversation at an April 4 work session on the budget centered on using a portion of the personal property tax revenue to directly invest in improving the public transit system that’s owned and operated by the City of Charlottesville.
“The amount that’s going to transit is $601,681,” said Krisy Hammill, the city’s budget director. “We put it as a service capacity increase for transit reserved for drivers.”
That’s enough for eight drivers and City Councilor Michael Payne suggested any additional revenue that is surplus go to continue to hire more people to operate Charlottesville Area Transit vehicles.
“We’ve just got to to eleven just to meet pre-pandemic service,” Payne said. “We said coming into this budget cycle transit was top and it ended up falling out so we didn’t get there.”
Payne also said Council is making a mistake increasing the personal property tax rate and meals tax rate and should rely on the real property tax to pay for their priorities and expanding relief programs.
After the budget was adopted, Hamill made a comment that embodies a move to a year-round budget cycle.
“Get ready to start on the next one,” Hammill said.
Mayor Juandiego Wade was absent due to a death in his family.
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This very disappointing. As what most of the city council does is convience for them.