The School Board unanimously passed a resolution to request the Prince William County Board of County Supervisors reevaluate proffer guidelines for new housing developments to ultimately increase the amount of money the school division receives.
Proffers are funds a municipality requires developers provide to help offset the cost of community infrastructure such as roads or schools needed for the new residents.
Associate Superintendent for Finance and Support Services Dave Cline explained the primary purpose of school-designated proffers is to “offset the cost of educating those students.” However, the Commonwealth limits the use of those funds to primarily the building of schools and school additions.
Brentsville Magisterial District School Board Member Gil Trenum proposed the resolution in response to already tight budgets and crowded classrooms.
“The reason why I ask that this be on the agenda tonight is that after going through the last budget season, budgets are getting tighter and tighter. We are going to continue to grow and continue to see new students,” Trenum said.
Trenum recommended the school board begin to tackle the problem “from both ends.” Pointing out that current proffer guidelines do not “fully offset the costs of additional students that come into the building,” he suggested raising the amount of school proffers.
Trenum said that it was time for proffers to be increased, since Prince William’s proffer levels are both“the lowest for all the major school divisions in the region, and they haven’t been updated for the longest time.”
Proffer levels have not increased in Prince William since 2006. As a result, neighboring school systems are receiving more funds from developers, which they in turn are using to build their schools and relieve existing taxpayers of that burden.
Cline said Loudoun County charges a $34,088 proffer per the average single family home. Their costs are nearly $20,000 higher than the $14,462 proffer that Prince William County requires. In Fauquier County, their proffer is approximately $21,000, and even some rural districts in Southern Virginia require higher proffer levels than Prince William.
“I’m really surprised to hear this, that with all these surrounding counties, even those counties south of us have higher proffers,” Potomac School Board Representative Betty Covington said.
Woodbridge Interim Board Representative Steven Keen drew the connection between high proffers and well-funded school districts, stating that Loudoun residents pay less in taxes per assessed value, but have a better-funded school system.
Cline credits a “mix of residential development and commercial development,” with contributing to the tax base. However, he suggests existing proffers may simply be too attractive to housing developers saying, “The people who want to build houses specifically target Prince William.”
However, Cline explained raising proffers would not likely bring in more school funds immediately. Developers, with projects that have already been approved by the county, would only be required to pay current proffer levels unless the Board of County Supervisors could approve a change in land designations. Without such a change, new proffers would be unlikely to yield impact over the next five-year taxing cycle.
Regardless, board members agreed that they would have to start the process.
Chairman At-Large Milt Johns said that he is in favor of the resolution, even though it is a only a friendly recommendation.
“The resolution asks the Board of County Supervisors that we request and encourage them to reevaluate the guidelines. We’re not telling them they should that they must do it, but we ask them to take a look at it again," Johns said.
The chairman said it was in good faith that the Board of County Supervisors changed their revenue sharing agreement to provide the School Division with the ability to fund the FY 2014 budget so perhaps those individuals would be willing to seriously entertain raising proffers.
Johns also explained that the supervisors did look into increasing proffers in recent years, but decided against it, since at that time the real estate market was “abysmal.”
Since housing inventory is currently very low, this may be the best time to increase proffers, he said.
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