Rather than working off a flat tax bill, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors instructed the County Executive to set the preliminary tax bill at a four percent increase from the FY13 tax bill with leeway to examine alternative increases of anywhere from 1-3 percent.
The proposal was passed by a majority vote of five to three at the BOCS Nov. 11 meeting.
“It’s a lot more difficult to have a fat budget and pare it back than to have a lean budget and add to it,” Chairman Corey Stewart (R-Chairman-At-Large) told the other members of the Board.
In answering Stewart, Supervisor Martin Nohe (R-Coles), quoted a line from the film, “A League of Their Own,” saying, “Of course it’s hard; it’s meant to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it.”
Supervisors Jenkins (D-Neabsco), Caddigan (R-Potomac), May (R-Occoquan), Nohe and Principi (D-Woodbridge) voted in favor of examining a four percent average tax bill increase as a starting point; Stewart, Covington (R-Brentsville) and Candland (R-Gainesville) voted in opposition.
Supervisors John Jenkins and Frank Principi had proposed tax bills recommending a 12-14 percent tax increase to fund unmet needs in the county; Stewart and Candland both proposed flat tax bills; while Covington advocated using the flat tax as a starting point.
Supervisor Michael May wanted to look at alternatives, such as a 1-2 percent tax increase. Supervisors Nohe and Caddigan neither felt comfortable with a flat tax nor a tax increase as large as that proposed by Jenkins and Principi, and Caddigan felt as though the whole process was being rushed.
While the flat tax would keep the average tax bill steady with the current tax bill, it would also require cuts to the county budget. Stewart championed a flat tax bill that would cut programs that originally were funded by the state government.
His tax bill would also required a cut of school funding by $12.5 million when schools are still experiencing a rise in new enrollments and overcrowding.
Of the cuts Stewart proposed, however, the most controversial was the Health Department.
Supervisor Pete Candland (R-Gainesville) also proposed his own flat tax bill, which he said did not receive fair treatment in its analysis by the County Executive’s office. His proposal called for an end to the revenue-sharing agreement, thus providing more money to the county schools when needed.
Although the analysis of his plan demonstrated a 30 percent cut across the board to government agencies and community partners, Candland said he only wanted to cut the carry-over money the agencies had at the end of the year. He was dismayed that his budget was being misrepresented as cutting agencies and partners so deeply as to result in the loss of 191 county jobs.
“(There has been) $26 million in unspent revenue saving for the last three years. I’m going to cut the budgets of certain agencies by the average of the extra money they have left over,” Candland said.
Citizens who spoke during citizen’s time voiced their opposition to the two flat tax bills. They supported community partners, agencies and the public schools.
Madeline Edmunds, CEO of Preachers in Christ Ministry and member of the Cooperative Council of Ministries, explained that cuts to nonprofits and agencies that benefit the underserved and faith-based communities would be devastating for the people of the county.
Some citizens, such as Jean Reynolds, said services were being leveraged for partisan politics.
“I don’t think you should use Prince William County to boost your cred with the Tea Party,” Reynolds told Candland. She said they she would vote to fund services on a very limited income, and people who live in “beautiful houses,” in the Gainesville district should also pay taxes to fund county services.
However, Candland believes some of those citizens were working off misinformation regarding his tax budget, since he was not planning on cutting services, just carry-over funds that would be reassigned to pay for priorities in the county.
“I absolutely think that it had hurt (the chances of my budget being approved),” said Candland of the County staff’s analysis of his proposal.“It ended up scaring great organizations that provide a function cheaper and more efficiently than government.”
He also said he stands behind the philosophy of the flat tax, explaining that Prince William residents pay the highest tax rate in Northern Virginia and that high taxes take money away from the people who may need it the most.
“I really do believe there are a lot of people out there struggling and raising taxes on them is just bad policy,” Candland said.
*Correction: in a previous edit, we listed Michael May of Occoquan as a Democrat, when he is in fact a Republican
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