Board of Supervisors Budget Public Hearing (CY 25 Tax Rate)   4/30/2025

Good evening.

I am pleased to call to order this meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on the 30th of April at 6 p.m.

in Lane Auditorium.

I'd like to note at the table, today we have Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District, Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, and myself, Jim Andrews representing the Samuel Miller District.

The quorum is present.

We're also joined by our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, and our Clerk, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson.

Also, let me please welcome Albemarle County Police Officers present, Master Police Officer Lauren Daly and Lieutenant Angela Jamerson.

Our main item on the agenda this evening is a public hearing to receive comments on the calendar year 2025 real property and personal property tax rates.

Before opening the public hearing, I'll look to Mr. Richardson, ask if there are any comments.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Chair, members of the board, I've also got with me this evening Mr. Jacob Sumner to my left, our chief finance officer, and also Mr. Andy Bowman, who's our assistant chief finance officer.

As the board knows, last week we went through about 15 to 20 minutes of board presentation to kind of tee up a summary.

of the budget and where we were.

We are prepared tonight to go back into that to the degree that the board has questions or after the public hearing, if there are specific questions that the board would like for us to pull any or all portions of that summary up, we'll be happy to do so.

So we really look for you in the board's direction.

Thank you.

I will look to my right and left and see if the board wants to make any comments.

We can go through our order, but I think in this case I'll just look to see.

Yes, I would say, and just to clarify, there is no action tonight.

That would be requested on the 7th on the tax rates and the budget is one total package.

And to clarify, there are two public hearings tonight, one on the real property tax rates and one on the personal property tax rates.

Thank you.

And so at this time, I will open the public hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's two public hearings tonight.

Correct.

So we have one person online and one person in person.

So I am going to read the rules.

During public comment hearings, the board will acknowledge speakers addressing the item listed for public hearing.

Speakers are limited to one parent of three minutes per public hearing item.

Community members physically present for the meeting will speak first, and then those who are attending the meeting electronically will speak.

For those attending electronically, the clerk will announce each speaker before it is their turn to speak.

For in-person speakers, timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium.

The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time.

The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking.

The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments.

In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

When addressing the board, state your name.

And if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district, address comments directly to the board as a whole.

Any written statements or other supporting material may be given to the clerk.

If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition.

Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

And do not speak from your seat or out of turn.

All comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website.

Welcome, Mr. Grant.

Please adjust the microphone, which seems to be pointed in the wrong direction right now.

Thank you.

Gary Grant, Rio District.

Back again because of your four-cent real estate tax rate increase.

on top of an average 5.1% real estate assessment increase.

Actually, my assessment went up 15% on my 47-year-old house with no improvements.

Because of your unanimous party vote advertising your 89.4% tax rate, and also because of some of your colleagues who still want an even higher rate,

Not really sure though why I'm here waiting for your red light to glare in three minutes.

I'm certainly not deeply professional, like your Scottsville supervisor, Esquire, who boasts about your party and your workers.

What's the point of public hearings?

when your Rivanna supervisor says that she and most of you already know how you're going to vote by the time you get here.

And how to cut your unanimous $0.04 tax rate increase anyway while your Rio supervisor fails to loop back as promised and scolds, come on, Gary, when questioned.

Ah yes, how to cut.

Perhaps with a two and a half percent social security level COLA instead of the budgeted three and a half percent raise for your workers.

Maybe by cutting a penny from your four cent tax rate hike by reducing your 40 million dollar general fund increase by just eight tenths percent.

or possibly by cutting three cents out of your four cent tax rate hike for free and reduced housing taken from your subjects who pay for their own housing responsibly and personally rather than through some faux governmental right to housing.

My apologies for being here and of being no impact.

I'm just not deeply professional enough, looped in enough, nor all-knowing enough in your business.

However, you'll of course get my higher tax check.

Thank you.

It is correct.

I don't know if you can see me.

I see my name coming up there, but that's about it.

Yes, we can hear you.

OK.

All right.

So to perhaps reiterate a little bit what Mr. Grant was saying, a little different perspective, my real estate

assessment was up 10%.

And I noticed we also have a personal property tax proposal up 8%.

But leaving that alone, there's a couple of things I wanted to mention.

Some statistics I just recently read on a comment.

Yale University's budget lab expects the tariffs to cost the average American household an additional $3,800 this year.

That's on top of the $2.3

Two and a half percent roughly inflation rate we've got already.

Okay.

According to the Federal Reserve, Americans had a total of 1.21 trillion in credit card debt outstanding as of the end of 2024.

More and more folks are falling behind on their credit card payments.

They're also choosing to buy now and pay later.

If you're not familiar with Buy Now Pay Later, those are ways for folks to break up their purchases and installments.

What's noteworthy there, more users are using this Buy Now Pay Later to buy their groceries.

That's not what it was sort of designed for.

It was designed for one-time larger expenditures.

Twenty-five percent of Buy Now Pay Later users say they may use loans to pay their groceries.

One-third of Generation Z

BNPL users say they've done so.

Making the fourth most common purchase for the age group.

Obviously that's not sustainable.

Lending Tree showed that 41% of respondents have made late payments on their BNPL loans in the past year.

So not only are they borrowing by their groceries, they're substantially late on those payments as well.

I'm not sure how all this is justifiable and sustainable.

If we're paying, if we're going to be paying 5% more inflation, roughly adding tariff costs plus existing inflation.

If people aren't, or credit card debts, or people are way behind in those and where they're using buy now pay later to try to just keep going for groceries and everyday expenses, how are they going to, how are they going to sustain double digit increases in real estate taxes, not to mention the personal property tax?

And I guess those are my points.

So I have the figures all here in audited numbers, but whatever that's worth, please take it into account.

Thank you.

That's it.

Then I will close the public hearing, bring this matter back before the board in case there are any additional comments.

We'll go through our order for today.

No comments in general because I assume that we will have a more further formal discussion next week but it does remind me that the same, I feel like I'm back in 2008, 9 and 10 again and yes the pain is real for people but if we allow ourselves to fall in the same rabbit hole that got us then

that starts the whole getting behind cycle on the Capitol and the services and everything.

So it's very painful for people.

I do understand that.

But it is a perfect storm, that's for sure.

Thank you.

Before I was elected, I remember I attended one of these hearings and there was a very pithy and I thought very effective thing that was said by one of the supervisors.

It was you, Mr. Chair.

It came to you in the order and you said you know the budget drives the tax rate and we have already agreed on the budget and I think we agree on the things that are in it and therefore I support the tax rate and that was your whole statement on it I was like oh that communicates the whole ballgame so I would also like to reference you know what Mr. Grant said right

There are discrete things in this budget that we could identify as sources of tax cuts and those represent policy choices.

The ones that he brought up are actually policy choices that I think we have seriously grappled with.

What does it mean to have a less compensated workforce that does not stay ahead of the curve of our peers?

So this tax rate, I see, is the culmination of those policy decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I concur that we have had our 33 hours of meetings with public comments and a lot of feedback informally, also a lot of emails, about additional things to be put in the budget, but also about concerns about the tax rate, which is

It's somewhat painful to have to increase the tax rate, but it is driven by the budget, so we visit those together.

They always have to be ultimately put together.

And we will act formally on May 7th.

If there are any other comments, if not, then I will turn to the next item, which is the calendar year 2025 personal property tax rates and open a public hearing on that matter.

Do we have anyone additional signed up?

Anybody wants to make additional comments?

Otherwise, I will close the public hearing and back before the board and go through our order one more time in case there's any additional comments.

It's not really so much a comment, but Andy, could you just briefly, you or Jacob, I'm not sure, I've seen emails coming in

some references to, of course, the personal property tax rate.

Sure.

And I'm going to pull up a slide that speaks to this as well.

This is one that the Board of Supervisors has seen before.

We're really talking through the history of where that rate has been for the last several years.

There you go.

I saw a flicker.

There you go.

Yeah, so this is the five-year history of where the personal property tax rate has been.

The majority, approximately about 87% or 80% of this, come from personal vehicle values.

And really, since the 1990s till 2021, that rebate had remained at $4.28.

After the onset of the pandemic, there was a dramatic change in the price of vehicles, particularly used vehicles due to supply chain and everything else.

So there was a dramatic surge.

And at that time, the board decided to drop the tax rate by about 20% or 86 cents down to $3.42.

The roommate remained there for two years.

And over the last two years, that has been phased in to return to the prior rate of fiscal year $4.28.

So everyone's individual experience based on the car you own, the value of that, can certainly vary.

Thank you.

I just think it's helpful for people to understand the history of where we are now and how we got here.

So we're back to where we were pre-pandemic and based on values.

That's right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I will just add how grateful I am for the staff person or whoever came up with the idea of the tremendous market imbalance that brought about the reduction because there were many communities that did not cut the tax rate at all for those vehicles that were then 40% more expensive.

So I really appreciate all of that that facilitated the amount of reduction that was appropriate at the right time.

Thank you.

Yes, I will say that our community, and I think it's been expressed by our county executive, Jeff Richardson, but our community really does demand a lot.

They want a lot of services.

And with those services comes a price tag.

I mean, they want the best people that we can hire.

They want the best fire.

They want the best police.

They want the best schools.

They want the best parks and recreation.

I've actually had people tell me,

People want

these things, there's a large expectation in our community that we will provide these services.

And I would say for the most part, because I've responded to my constituents that have emailed me or called me, I've responded to each one of them, but there is an expectation that we will do what is best for the community.

And it was mentioned before, but

I will say this board is very professional and we do not know how, I never know how anyone's going to vote.

on anything until I get here because sometimes we change our minds depending on what some of us say we can change our minds.

So I wanted to put that to rest but it's a wealthy community and there are a lot of expectations and I think we're meeting those expectations and believe me I really do wish we didn't have to raise taxes in order to meet those obligations but

That is a reality of being here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think the second speaker should be noting the tariffs on new cars.

I think it's something we should watch this year.

I think it's not necessarily the same thing that spiked the values during the pandemic because you had such a supply issue with new cars that used cars was really all that people could buy and then the spike in federal money being given cash infusions to people

Given them basically down payments, the car business didn't even know they were going to run out and use those monies to put those monies down on cars.

So then used cars started flying off the lot because there was no new car market to speak of.

But I think it's something that we should watch over the next 12 months, because if tariffs, who knows what's going to happen with this tariff situation.

I mean, it really does seem to change every day, but right now,

If the current piece is that the new car market gets some reprieve from the tariffs, then that may help kind of keep people from pushing to use cars because all of a sudden new cars are 5, 10, 15 percent more.

But I think it's good for us to know, I just looked it up, the average used car listing price right now is at $25,100.

It's absurd.

So even the used car market, and I think I had shared this the last month, where the average used car payment was $520, $530, and the average new car payment's over $700.

It's like $750.

So it's something that we do have to be mindful of and just watch, I think, for similar reason of why we made the adjustment in the past.

So I appreciate Mr. Myers pointing that particular aspect of it out.

Thank you.

I don't believe I have any further comments.

Thank you.

I certainly agree that tariff uncertainty and many different uncertainties today are complicating the picture.

They also complicate the picture of what services may be needed from local governments.

Regardless of what tax rates are adopted on May 7th by us, I know this board will continue to look for ways to diversify revenue sources, not just trying to rely solely on especially residential real estate.

and look for efficiencies in how we provide essential services.

So that is something I think we take very seriously throughout the year, not just during the budget time.

So if there are no additional comments, we have already closed the public hearing, so we will move on to the next item.

No, we'll just be back next week at the May 7th meeting to adopt the budget, the tax rates, and all the related actions to conclude the fiscal year 26 development process.

This brings us to, from the board, committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda, and we have one that is important to start out with, I don't have an actual physical copy, but I think we've all received it, is a form of a proclamation to recognize our community salute, which is the ceremony for

I have families who have offspring going into the military.

That's this Saturday.

This is a proclamation that we've seen, and it's been proposed to be read, I believe, by Supervisor Pruitt at the ceremony.

Do we need to read it here?

It's up to the board.

It's up to the board.

Second.

Ms.

Mallet?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Gallaway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Thank you.

I just would caution, I just want to caution people to be very careful with cigarette disposals right now, tossing cigarettes out windows.

We are so dry.

and our fire season continues.

And I've been absolutely astounded at the number of fire calls that our fire departments have been responding to and the amount of acreage this year that we've lost or, you know, that has been burned.

So, I just wanted to caution people.

It is real.

I think we're, is it six to eight inches somehow?

Yeah, I mean, it's astounding how dry.

And it's the whole state.

It's not just us, it is the state.

And we all remember, was it two years ago, when we had a fire in this county and we were calling for help to other fire departments in other communities to help us because we didn't have enough, our firemen were overwhelmed with the urgency of the fire.

So, just wanted to make a comment.

Yes, I wanted to warn everybody because evidently fire ants are being found in the area and they bite and sting repeatedly.

Their venom can cause severe allergic reaction in some individuals.

So kind of warning everyone to make sure that

They're aware of that.

VDACS has just completed a survey that the area in northern Albemarle near Coles on 29 North, they found 70 mounds in a 60-acre area that included both sides of Route 29.

and suspect that there are more.

So we need to keep an eye out for them because they will attack when disturbed.

Their amounts, going into more detail, their amounts may appear as flat areas or dirt raised

with no visible openings, so just a dirt pile.

So if you find fire ants in Virginia, do not disturb the mounds.

Disturbing them can trigger attacks or cause the colony to relocate.

Report ant sightings to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

So be on the lookout for that.

And I'll give my airport

And I have nothing, although I will add to the comment about fire.

We were walking our dogs at six in the morning and we saw a wet spot, this is in town, in the mulch.

And then we realized it was smoking.

And we proceeded to put it out.

Somebody had just thrown a cigarette and it was already burning on the ground very quietly with no one standing it at six in the morning.

OK.

Opportunities for the public to access and participate in this meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the board of supervisors' home page, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received.