Supes Hear No Help Likely With Taxing, Funding From State

Thursday, December 02, 2010

You can’t squeeze water from a stone.

That seemed to be the theme of last week’s meeting between James City County Supervisors and their General Assembly representatives to discuss the county’s legislative agenda.

State Sen. Tommy Norment and State Delegates Robin Abbott, William Barlow and Brenda Pogge weren’t optimistic about the outlook for next year’s state budget, which means more reductions will be likely, according to Norment. Supervisors’ main requests for new legislation focused on increasing various taxing and revenue-generating abilities of the county and ensuring that the state will stop issuing unfunded mandates, but the four General Assembly members weren’t supportive of most of those requests, mainly because none were likely to pass.

The county hoped to amend state code to allow counties to tax cigarettes (an authority that cities and towns have). In general, the county has always pushed for equal taxing authority for cities and counties, but Del. Pogge pointed out that with the current mood of the nation and a state House of Delegates with more Republicans now, nothing that could possibly increase taxes would be likely to pass. Sen. Norment and Del. Abbott agreed such changes would likely not get far.

As for the cigarette tax, Pogge said if they are cheaper in James City County than in Williamsburg, the county would likely cash in on people looking for lower prices who would bypass the city to shop for cigarettes in the county.

Del. Barlow said it wasn’t worth worrying about whether it would pass or not, so he said he’d put the legislation forward and see how things went.

The county also had on its agenda a proposal to allow localities to tax fertilizer, with the aim that the funds would go toward Chesapeake Bay restoration, but there wasn’t much support for this plan, either. Del. Pogge said there may well be a state tax on fertilizer soon for the same aim, anyhow.

She also argued that counties should have fewer ordinances on yard maintenance and grass mowing, because taller grass keeps more nitrogen (from fertilizer) out of the Bay.

Supervisor John McGlennon took umbrage to the comment, pointing out that the county was a leader when it comes to ordinances and policies meant to conserve water and protect the environment.

Supervisors decided to move the request to 2012.

Over the past few years of severe budget cuts on the state and local levels, the county has been bristling over various mandates passed down by the state but not funded. That complaint came up again during last week’s meeting when the county requested that the state continue to fund Line of Duty Act benefits (additional death or disability benefits for public safety officers and firefighters).

The most recent state budget moved funding to the local level for this state-mandated program, leaving the county to foot the bill. The county asked that the General Assembly agree to fund the program again, but there wasn’t much optimism that this would happen.

Sen. Norment said the upcoming budget would likely include more cuts due to still-low revenues, and the state is grappling with the problem of federal mandates like Medicaid that need funding, so he didn’t expect there would be any flexibility to raise funds for state mandates to help localities.

McGlennon said shifting responsibility to the localities wasn’t a good solution. “Something’s gotta give at some point,” he said.

Other items on the county’s agenda that were less controversial the General Assembly members divvied up to bring forward during the upcoming legislative session, including a request to allow the use of state retirement funds to pay restitution for state employees convicted of embezzlement. To see a full list of the county’s legislative priorities and requests, look on the county’s website.