Prince William board adopts advertised tax rate, $1M for class size reduction

During last night’s Prince William Board of County Supervisor’s meeting, a majority of the supervisors voted to adopt the advertised tax rate – $1.122 per $100 of assessed property value – as well as the fiscal year 2016 budget for the county.

This comes after a decision late last year to reconsider the 4% tax increase stated in the county’s five-year plan, and an initial budget draft presented earlier this year by County Executive Melissa Peacor that used a 1.3% tax increase.

In March, the board of supervisors announced their tax ceiling rate at 3.88%, which they could go under, but not above, with the final tax rate.

In a 6-2 vote, the board passed the residential real estate tax rate – which includes the 3.88% tax increase – at $1.122 of every $100 in assessed property value.

Chairman At-Large Corey Stewart and Supervisors Nohe, Jenkins, May, Caddigan and Principi all voted in favor of the tax rate. Supervisors Candland and Lawson were opposed.

“Although there are some very good things in the budget – some very good programs – and Supervisor Lawson and I were happy to play a part in getting some of those programs into the budget, we had also proposed over $14 million in savings, that would help relieve the tax burden on the taxpayers in the county. And unfortunately, none of those suggested savings were passed by the board. So I felt that it still contained too much spending, and toward an impending trajectory that I believe is just unsustainable – that’s going to require continued large tax increases to support,” said Candland.

Last week, Supervisors Candland and Lawson announced their own budget draft, which would have included only a 2.5% tax increase – and would have required around $14.6 million in budget cuts.

Betty Dean, a leader in the community group Our Prince William had mixed feelings at the end of the budget adoption last night.

“If Our Prince William were to craft a budget, the budget that would have been passed would have been different than the one that passed last night. But having said that, the one that was passed last night…takes some really positive steps toward continuing to keep us in the path that the citizen’s have envisioned in their five-year plan. What I really would’ve liked to have seen happen is a unanimous vote – and I say that because while the budget wasn’t everything I wanted, and it also wasn’t everything that Supervisors Candland and Lawson wanted – it certainly had a lot of things in there that they worked hard to put in there,” said Dean.

Additionally, following a straw vote that took place last week, the board decided to finalize the $1 million grant to be given to Prince William County Public Schools as part of a class size reduction program introduced by Supervisors Candland and Lawson.

In order for the school system to access those funds, they would need to ensure that they would be used solely for class size reduction, and provide a $1 million match in funds, that would come from their school budget.

The original class size reduction program introduced allotted $2 million to the schools, and did not have a matching component.

Supervisor Principi suggested the $1 million and school matching in the board meeting last week.

“This is probably the most important issue that both elected boards are facing right now,” said Principi.