Tax cuts only work if services are maintained

I’m not opposed to tax cuts.  As a matter of fact, I think we need more of them. However, a tax cut shouldn’t negatively impact required services such as public safety and education. 

I refer you to the huge tax cut on real estate that the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors passed last April in adopting its “equalization rate” after the reassessment.  This tax cut affected residences with generally less than three acres in the town and county.  However, not everyone benefited from this real estate tax cut.  It depends on where the real estate is located, the type of real estate it is, and how many acres the parcel has. 

The public has been kept in the dark regarding this action and how it occurred. Residents need to be aware of the impact it currently has and that it will have on required county services. The $4 million deficit can probably be attributed to this action.  The resulting domino affect of the county hiring freeze, educational underfunding for the new schools, tabling of the much needed jail facility and other issues will impact our future for years.

If this was an inadvertent action, it should be corrected and the taxes restored to the 2006 levels. Level funding of county operation would not be a problem if revenue levels had been maintained. We need to somehow pay for the growth related services. However, county administration, in calculating how to achieve level funding somehow goofed and has put all county agencies, including schools in a financial bind. If this revenue reduction had not taken place the budget picture for our county would not be so stormy. 

Ultimately, the buck stops with the Board of Super-visors. It makes the decisions on setting tax rates, the budget and how our taxes are spent. Anyone can find how much their taxes were for 2006 and 2007 by going to the county Web site and the treasurer’s link at culpepercounty.gov/applications/TRApps/index.htm Consideration of ways to restore those local real estate revenues should be a major part of the ongoing budget discussions.  Pointing fingers and blaming others is not an appropriate way of dealing with this perplexing problem. 

Kim A. Williams
Reva