Bristow Beat interviewed Brentsville District Supervior Wally Covington (R) about his approval of the advertised tax rate, where he stands on teacher salaries and getting more of Prince William County's tax money back from Richmond.
BB: The Board of County Supervisors approved the tax rate of 1.215 percent Tuesday at the meeting. You expressed that you approve it “at this time,” does that mean you would like to see the final rate lower?
WC: We approved advertisement of the tax rate. The actual tax rate by law is determined following a public hearing. By advertising the tax rate to the public, we cannot go higher than the amount advertised. However, the rate can be set lower. In the interim, the Board of County Supervisors will continue to dissect the budget adding and cutting to produce a final, balanced fiscal plan – which in the end, cannot be “more expensive” than the anticipated revenue the advertised tax rate – or lowered rate would bring in.
BB: What was your primary concern when considering the tax rate?
WC: The taxpayer.
BB: As you witnessed, many teachers/PWEA members spoke out that they have not received their anticipated salary step and cost of living increases. The Board is projecting to have no additional funds to put towards education for the next five years. What do you tell those teachers, who will be stuck on a step for eight straight years?
WC: “Stuck for eight years” is a premature argument to make at this stage in the process. We have set a precedent for no raises and/or steps with county employees as there were several budgets where we could not offer these incentives to county government staff. Because we elected to pay our Virginia Retirement System (VRS) contributions and initiate a two-tiered VRS system within county staff, new hires now contribute a portion of their pay towards their retirement and we maintained our VRS commitment to long-term employees. The School Board had the same choices to make given the parameters of their annual budgets.
(Superintendent) Dr. Walts made his recommendations in the proposed School Board budget based on county and state projections of revenue to the schools. The School Board budget is comprised of three sources of revenue: county property tax dollars, and income taxes from the state and federal governments.
The elected School Board has not yet vetted the Superintendent’s proposed budget. In short, it’s still early to envision a School Board budget that does not reflect the elected School Board’s priorities for their employees and more importantly, the 73,000+ students we educate county-wide.
For the record, if we approve the advertized tax rate and the real estate assessments do not change and the proposed budget is approved, the county will have increased our portion of the schools budget by $19.6 million.
BB: You seem to recommend that the PWEA should lobby Richmond to bring more money back to Prince William County?
WC: Yes, I have long advocated that we need to see more local tax dollars that are sent to Richmond be returned back to Northern Virginia. As state and federal dollars are cut from the schools, more of the burden is shifted onto the backs of the people who pay property taxes – local Prince William County property owners.
As Prince William County has grown, so has the amount of tax dollars we send to Richmond. Richmond enjoys the benefit of these progressive taxes, but very little is returned to Prince William County. For example, in December 2011, Prince William County sent over $5 million in sales tax revenue to Richmond and received only $1 million back. Across Northern Virginia, this revenue drain to Richmond has increased for 23 consecutive months! Similarly, all of the income tax dollars we send down to Richmond end up subsidizing the more rural, less populated areas in the Commonwealth because a disproportionate amount returns to us.
Something just has to shift in this paradigm. Wouldn’t it be more logical to retain some of our tax dollars – a fair share – here, in Price William County, where they are most needed?
BB: Would you characterize yourself as a fiscal conservative? The governor and legislature in Richmond are also trying to be fiscally conservative. How do you disagree with them on spending?
WC: Yes, I am unapologetically a fiscal conservative. I don’t disagree with Governor McDonnell or with legislators trying to curb spending and keep taxes lower. However, I do, as I stated in the previous question, I think it is unconscionable and frankly unfair in the way our tax dollars are distributed to Northern Virginia versus the rural areas of the state.
BB: Do you believe residents can afford a tax hike right now?
WC: No. That’s why these decisions are gut wrenching for me. The economy as a whole is still very fragile. Family budgets are tight and the smallest change can ripple through a family. I get that. The fact that property values seem to be on the upswing is not a good measure of how well people are doing. For the middle class, property is the biggest investment we make in our lifetime. To have that, in addition to our income, constantly tapped again and again for taxes, has squeezed this economy nationwide. I can’t tell you how many times I heard this from citizens when I visited their homes last summer.
Even though Prince William County is the 9th most wealthy county in income, you rarely see that average income compared to what it costs to live here, the fact that many families bought homes at the peak of the boom and may be underwater, or the fact that many families had to adjust their lifestyle to one income during the downturn. Ironically, as we “prosper,” more and more of our tax dollars go down to Richmond and are not redistributed back to us, so I would question how “wealth” is actually defined. As a county, we are and have been during the past few budget cycles trying to do more with much less.
BB: Do you feel you voted in accordance with what your constituents wanted?
WC: At this point in the process we have a divided constituency. For example, on one hand, we have teachers who live in my district who want Prince William County to be competitive in the NOVA market and live in the community in which they work. They are advocating for higher taxes. But on the other hand, I also hear from senior citizens, parents with college age children and couples who both worked, but now live on one income, for example, who have stretched their budgets to the limit. In the meantime, taxes keep going up – a line item in their family budgets which they cannot control – and taxpayers are frustrated.
But I have universal support from my constituency to persistently lobby Richmond to get our fair share back from the Commonwealth.
Allowing Richmond to redistribute our tax dollars is wrong. We can’t continue to bail out Richmond or the rest of the state.
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