Stafford Supervisors Approve 3-Cent Tax Increase
This is lower than the rate that was advertised and proposed by the County Administrator.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
The Stafford Board of Supervisors approved a 3-cent tax increase for the current calendar year, bringing the county’s real estate tax rate to $0.92 per $100 of assessed value.
This is a 2-cent reduction from both the advertised tax rate and the tax rate proposed by County Administrator Bill Ashton earlier this spring.
In order to still be able to provide an increase to the school division—which the division has requested to fund salary scale improvements for licensed teachers and support staff—the board voted to advertise a 1% increase to the meals tax and a 2% increase to the transient occupancy tax.
Those increases are first subject to a public hearing, which will occur on May 20. Revenues from the meals tax increase, if adopted, would be earmarked for the schools.
School division superintendent Daniel Smith said in an email to staff this morning that a 1% meals tax increase would bring in “about $3.1 [million], depending on food/restaurant sales, bringing the total increase to schools to $8.1 [million].”
Vice Chair Tinesha Allen made the motion to approve the $0.92 tax rate, and Chair Deuntay Diggs and supervisors Monica Gary and Pamela Yeung supported it. Supervisors Crystal Vanuch, Darrell English, and Meg Bohmke voted against the tax rate and instead supported a substitute motion by Vanuch to keep the rate flat.
Setting the tax rate at the 2-cent rather than the 5-cent increase meant supervisors had to make a number of cuts to the budget. The approved cuts include $800,000 in on-going funding for the Sheriff’s office to purchase new vehicles; $5,000 from the county Christmas tree lighting; and the postponement of a pay raise for general government staff from implementation on July 1 of this year to January 1, 2026.
Another big cut was to an increase in funding for the Rappahannock Regional Jail. The board instead will level fund the jail. Supervisors tasked Vanuch—who serves on the Regional Jail Authority Board along with representatives from Spotsylvania and King George counties and Fredericksburg City—with reaching out to the other members of the board to let them know about Stafford’s funding decision.
The budget as approved Tuesday night/Wednesday morning still includes a gap of $344,959 between revenues and expenditures, which the board will direct Ashton to “find in his budget to remove,” according to the county’s finance director, Andrea Light.
The board heard several hours of public comment during the meeting. There were comments in support of the proposed 5-cent tax increase and against any tax increase.
There were also members of the public who said they didn’t want their taxes to go up, but that if they had to go up, they would like to see the money go to support the school division.
According to a press release from the county about the budget, “Nearly 86% of all new revenue is dedicated to education, supporting teacher salaries and academic programs.”
“Stafford remains one of the most affordable localities in the region” despite the 2-cent tax increase, the press release stated.
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