The Gloucester Board of
Supervisors has now started contemplating how they will allow our local
government to spend your tax dollars next year. The County Administrator is recommending a one and a half cent real estate tax
increase which is the amount of increase the BOS approved last year. If the BOS
follow the Administrator’s recommendation, the real estate tax rate will
increase from to 69.5 to 71 cents per $100 of assessed value.
There is a small minority of
people in Gloucester who, for one personal cause or another, want
the real estate tax rate to increase significantly. Like I have many times in
the past; I suggest those folks donate as much as they want to their causes and
passions, but leave the rest of us out of it. The typical response to my
suggestion is something along the lines of them not trusting that their donated
money will be used for their cause. What sense does that make?
The majority of people in Gloucester do not want real estate taxes increased at all. I am
one of those folks and believe there should be no further tax increases until
our local government makes all money matters completely transparent to the
public, eliminates all unnecessary spending, consolidates services with our
school system, eliminates redundant and unnecessary services and establishes a
detailed plan that quantifies and addresses our numerous and neglected infrastructure needs.
Over the last several years
there have been efforts by a handful of us to encourage the BOS to put in place
measures and policies that will enhance transparency in our local government.
When the current BOS evolved through the addition of three board members who
are up for reelection this November, they appeared to take significant steps
towards making the County’s financial matters more open to the people. After a
little over three years, the steps that were initially made have mostly been
erased and we are now left with abandoned efforts and broken promises.
During the BOS budget
deliberations last year; I pointed out several things our local government
spends money on that are a complete waste of tax dollars. The most
ludicrous of these expenditures is the amount of tax dollars they throw away on
renting our public library and local health department spaces. In my opinion;
the rental agreement for the courthouse library and health department space was
created as an unethical backdoor funding mechanism to financially empower the
Main Street Gloucester Preservation Trust. The taxpayers of Gloucester have and
continue to be forced to provide money to this “not for profit” non-government
organization that has taken control of the courthouse area of the county and the
current BOS treats them just as good as prior boards did. The logical thing to
do is close the Hayes library until a building can be purchased or built to
replace it. All money currently budgeted to that library should be placed in a
separate account to go towards buying our way out of the current lease agreement
and towards building or buying the necessary library space. Money should be borrowed
to build a new main library on the property where Page Middle School is located and to build new health department space in
the Gloucester business park where Sentara and the free clinic are
located. The Commonwealth rents the health department space from Gloucester County, so those rent payments will ultimately pay to build
the building and will eventually turn into a revenue stream. All tolled our
local government is throwing away in the neighborhood of a half million dollars
annually by not owning our own library and health department spaces.
I also pointed out that
almost a half million dollars is being wasted yearly on the community education
department. Instead of breaking up this department and returning all of its
functions to the school system, social services, information technology and
county administration departments; our local government doubled down by giving
the director a nice raise and by changing the name of the department to the department
of community engagement. This department pays multiple people to manage
community use of our public school facilities. Each one of these people
receives a salary and benefits that are paid for with tax dollars. I suggested
having each school’s administration office re-assume these responsibilities
utilizing current school system employees and teachers. Even if we need to pay
a few employees and teachers a little more money to perform this function after
school, we will still save a significant amount on salaries and benefits by not
having the extra employees. Social Services is the governmental department that
is supposed to provide assistance to those in the community who are in need.
The community engagement department facilitates and supports various non-profit,
non-government organizations that should be supported and facilitated by our local social
services department. If someone is in need, social services should be the one stop place
to go to connect with available government and community resources. There was
no need to create a special department to do this. Community engagement also responds
to Freedom of Information Act requests for information and publishes the Beehive
and the Weekly Town Crier. These functions and all other media and public
affairs type functions should become a joint effort between county administration
and information technology. There is no need to pay a director over $100,000
plus benefits yearly to manage these functions.
Gloucester’s animal control department spends most of its time
patrolling the roads throughout the county. Last year I suggested ending the
patrolling and turning animal control into a strictly reactionary department. If
someone has a concern about an animal issue they will call. We certainly do not
need to be paying employees to visit the public beach under the bridge and the
York River Yacht Haven pool at Gloucester Point multiple times a day; or to
hang out and shoot the breeze in various local stores. I also suggested routing
all animal control dispatch calls through the Sheriff’s department and to limit
the number of full time animal control employees to two. These changes should
result in significant tax dollar savings and improve animal control’s
relationship with the overall community.
These are just a few examples
of the unnecessary and costly ways our local government frivolously spends our
tax dollars. Consolidating county and school system functions is another way that
Gloucester can significantly cut costs and enhance service. We
will soon share what our BOS and School Board have done about consolidation
over the last three years.
We have provided other
information pertaining to Gloucester’s
lease agreements, budget and real estate tax rates at the end of this article. Be
sure to check it all out.
We encourage all Gloucester residents, landowners
and business owners to actively follow our elected and employed local
government representatives and administrators, and hold them accountable for
their actions. Remember, all levels of government work for We The People.
Let us know what you think
and share your comments and Gloucester government related stories by emailing us at
Kennysr61@gmail.com or by posting remarks on the Facebook post that led you
here.
Kenneth E. Hogge, Sr.
Gloucester
Point, Virginia
Helping To Drain The Swamp
The following are current real estate tax rates:
Gloucester……….69.5 cents per $100 of assessed value
Mathews…………54 cents per $100
of assessed value
New Kent………..83 cents per $100 of assessed value
West Point………72 cents per $100 of assessed value
York……………..75.15 cents per $100.00 of assessed value
Williamsburg…….57 cents per $100 of assessed value
Newport
News…..1 dollar
and 22 cents per $100 of assessed value
Hampton………...1 dollar and 24 cents per $100 of assessed value
Gloucester’s Proposed FY18 Budget Presentation:
Gloucester’s FY 2017 Budget:
View this slide share to
see Gloucester’s library, health department and other lease
agreements:
