Charlottesville City Council held its first public hearing on next fiscal year's proposed tax rate and City Manager Maurice Jones' proposed budget yesterday evening.
City resident and former Council candidate Brandon Collins said current economic times demanded an increase of City services and therefore a hike in City taxes.
"I don't see any problem with raising the tax rate... even a small, tiny increase," Collins said. "The time is now to put some money into people who are suffering from the economic crisis."
Collins asked the City to increase its minimum wage to $13 dollars and to channel more funds into public housing.
Vice Mayor Kristin Szakos said she wanted to raise City taxes at some time in the future. At 95 cents for every $100 in property value, Charlottesville has the second-lowest tax rate of any city in Virginia which provides full services to its citizens, she said.
"I see a potential time when I would want to talk about bringing them back up a little bit," Szakos said.
Jones said property tax rates for the City have been decreasing since he started working for the City in the 1990s. The most recent decrease came in 2008, when the rate dropped from 99 cents per $100 to 95 cents per $100, Jones said.
Councilwoman Dede Smith said she thought increases in property values throughout time had balanced out the tax decreases Szakos discussed.
"Our tax rate might be low, but our real estate prices are very high," Smith said.
Jones said increasing funding for schools is one of his budget's priorities. Since the state no longer counts University students as part of the City's school-age population, "the schools... took a significant hit" in the amount of government funding they receive, Jones said.
Jones said a better long-term strategy for increasing school funding is necessary because he said the City is "using a lot of one-time money" to cover the decrease in state education funding this year.
Representatives from several nonprofit groups, including a group dedicated to improving literacy, also spoke before the Council to ask the body to continue funding them.
Council recently adopted a new way of determining funding for nonprofits which takes City priorities into account. The Council hoped to hold nonprofits more accountable when giving them funds, but some of the groups said technicalities prevented them from receiving full funding.
Council members unanimously supported both the new method of allocating City resources to nonprofits and a desire to restore full funding to the nonprofits who needed it.
"This is a Council that has put a priority on job readiness," Councilman Dave Norris said. Full funding for "work-readiness" programs should be restored, he said.
Szakos said she came to the Council meeting ready to defend how nonprofits were funded using the new system, as she understands how situations such as staff changes in the middle of budget season could create problems for these groups.
"I came into this process ready to fight against second-guessing" those funding decisions, Szakos said. "I wouldn't want to take [funds] away from other organizations" to restore these groups to full funding.
Jones said the Council has room to use a largely untouched pot of money set aside for Council projects to refund these nonprofits.
Further discussion of the budget will continue at public hearings during the next few weeks.
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