The Augusta County Board opted to advertise a 48-cent tax rate (Waynesboro News Virginian); meaning that’s the highest they can go. As that is also the tax-equalization rate, it means that the 2009 assessment fiasco will not mean an overall increase in taxes and spending.
While it may not seem like much, this was actually a big win for the Augustan people (led by my friend SWAC Girl). Had they stayed silent and meekly accepted the assessments, odds are the Board would have kept the old rate of 58-cents and gone on a spending spree. Instead, Augusta has its first equalization in over 25 years, and limited government didn’t take it on the chin.
Plenty of other counties were watching Augusta to see if a tax increase would come from this. As Augusta is one of the most Republican counties in the Commonwealth, a tax hike here would have been a signal for supervisors and city councillors throughout Virginia that they could do the same in their jurisdictions. That signal was not sent, and the rest of us should be grateful to the Augusta activists who stopped it from happening.
There is still the issue of the pre-bubble assessments, although from a political perspective, they may be easier to handle now. Since the local government will notbe getting a revenue increase out of this, it no longer has “skin in the game,” as it were. Perhaps now, the Board can take a long, hard look at the assessments – and recognize that it would be best to revert to the status quo ante.
At the very least, they should mitigate the damage by having another assessment in place for next year, and moving to a shorter cycle. To leave property owners with a pre-bubble assessment value until 2013 would be hilarious if it wasn’t so painful.
[...] you want about the Augusta County Board of Supervisors (and I have, quite a bit), at least they advertised an equalized tax rate to ensure the assessment fiasco didn’t turn into a local government revenue [...]