Information Charlottesville

City Council will hold a work session with the Planning Commission this afternoon but before the joint session on transportation matters gets underway, there will be a second reading of an appropriation of $1.5 million in city funds to be used as grants to low- and middle-income property owners. 

This would replace the long-running program Charlottesville Housing Affordability Program (CHAP) that the city had been using to provide tax relief. Todd Divers is Charlottesville’s Commissioner of Revenue. 

“We’ve kind of scrambled to put together a program that I think is going to get us close to what we were doing,” Divers said. 

It’s been nearly a month since the City of Charlottesville announced it would resume the practice of shutting down service for unpaid utility bills. There was a statewide moratorium on such disconnects that expired last September. In all, the city used $557,000 in various federal assistance programs to help some customers.

However, they announced in April disconnects would resume. 

“To date, six accounts have been disconnected and remain out of service,” said Chris Cullinan, the city’s finance director, in an email to Charlottesville Community Engagement. 

Even though Council has recently adopted a budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1, there is never a time when the city’s finances are not in the public eye. Interim City Manager Michael C. Rogers briefed Council this week on the state of revenue collection for the current fiscal year that ends on June 30. 

“So far this year we have currently collected 66.93 percent of our budgeted revenue and we remain on track to collect more than the adopted revenue budget of $192,212,843,” Rogers said. 

In a brief meeting last night, Charlottesville City Council adopted a nearly $212.9 million budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. However, a penny increase in the real estate tax rate goes into effect for the calendar year, which will be included in the tax bills that will soon be sent to property owners. That’s the first increase in the tax rate several decades.

“It’s been a long budget season,” said interim City Manager Michael C. Rogers. “We’ve listened as staff to your various proposals and desires to address issues in our community.”