Supervisors Reduce Real Estate Tax Rate Ahead of Tuesday Night Vote

At the April 15 meeting, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors made its final changes to the fiscal year 2026 budget and tax rates.

The Board, after fruitful discussion and back-and-forth, reduced the real estate tax rate to $0.906 per $100 of assessed value from the county executive’s proposed rate of 92 cents in February.

Supervisor Yesli Vega supported bringing the tax rate down to 88 cents per $100 of assessed value due to the cost-of-living struggles.

“My mission since being elected to this seat has always been to provide real tax relief. People are struggling, people are living paycheck to paycheck [and] not everybody has a six-figure income coming in,” Vega said. “… When we talk about helping people, when we talk about affordability, we[‘ve] got to remember that we have the power to ensure that we help those folks.”

Supervisor Andrea Bailey was supportive of decreasing the real estate tax rate, but didn’t want to decrease it too much.

“We have to be reasonable about [the real estate tax rate] because we don’t know how the climate is going to be nationally,” Bailey said. “We can’t make a decision in a vacuum by just throwing some numbers out there.”

Supervisor Bob Weir noted he wanted to reduce the burden on taxpayers across the board with the help of higher taxes on data centers.

“Budget priority No. 1 for me is to fulfill the promise that this Board and the past Board have made to reduce the burden on the residential and, to some extent, the commercial taxpayers, both in the form of real estate taxes and vehicle taxes, by taking advantage of the alleged revenue windfall from the data center industry. The budget, as proposed, doesn’t do that,” Weir said.

Some, like Bailey, were hesitant to make larger reductions to the real estate tax rate because all had expressed interest in decreasing the personal property tax rate on vehicles and the meals tax, both of which were accomplished.

Chair DeShundra Jefferson wanted to take a moderate approach to decreasing taxes.

“I want to talk about where we can make incremental tax decreases. One of the things I’ve always said is we do need to reduce the burden on our residents. But I am also looking at a moderate, balanced approach to that,” Jefferson said. “We do have more data centers and that is an opportunity for us to expand our commercial tax base. But we’re not where some of our neighboring jurisdictions are. We’re not there yet.”

The vehicle tax was reduced from $3.70 per $100 of assessed value to $3.50, resulting in a $13.1 million revenue decrease.

Supervisor Kenny Boddye recognized the vehicle tax was a real pain point for residents.

“That’s one of the biggest taxes I hear from my constituents all the time. Yes, there’s some others that they mentioned, but the most universal tax that I know that really hits my constituents is that vehicle tax,” Boddye pointed out.

The meals tax was decreased from 4% to 3%, resulting in a $5.7 million revenue decrease; the new tax will not be implemented until Jan. 1, 2026.

To make up for the lost revenue, the Board voted to increase the computer equipment and peripherals (C&EP) tax to $4.15 per $100 of assessed value. This will bring in an additional $18 million to the county.

Supervisor Margaret Franklin said she was supportive of the C&EP tax rate increase, but recognized this would hurt small businesses in addition to the data centers.

“I do think, particularly in our legislative agenda, we really do need to push to figure out how we can separate out businesses that are not data centers from being impacted by these increases that we’re doing,” Franklin said. “That probably needs to end up being a priority for this Board. I’m fine with going up for our data centers, but it really, really pains me to have to do it for the 500 or so businesses that are not data centers.”

In addition to tax rate changes, a number of budget additions and deletions were made to the fiscal year 2026 budget by the Board. Before the Board went into detail on their adds/deletes, Weir said they needed to be sure not to craft a ballooning budget.

“Any additions to the budget beyond what’s already in it will require cuts or significant tax rate changes. … If somebody wants to add something, they better have a cut to fund it with, if it’s outside of the budget presented,” he said.

Some of the changes that were made include eliminating nearly $350,000 for maintenance of the Occoquan trails and adding $130,000 in one-time funds for Williams Ordinary’s historic preservation; $48,000 for increased program costs to implement a Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate and Release program; and a 15% increase to the Planning Commission’s stipends.

The Board also approved changes to the landfill and compost facility hours, opting to open the facility on Sundays and changing operating hours during the week. The new hours will be Monday through Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday through Sunday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The final fiscal year 2026 budget will be approved Tuesday night, April 22, 2025.