Loudoun County supervisors plan to ask the General Assembly for a cigarette tax in January, among other items on the county’s annual legislative wish list.
The county wants to ask the legislature to approve a measure that would give Loudoun County the authority to impose a cigarette tax, as well as statutory authority that would authorize the county to decide for itself what it should do with potential revenue from the tax.
Projected revenue from such a tax would be $2.7 million at 30 cents a pack and $4.4 million at 50 cents a pack for fiscal 2010.
The board has also issued a draft position to support a “significant increase” in state education funding and additional state revenue to help localities fund construction and renovation of public school facilities.
The county school budget for fiscal 2009 is $755.6 million, and the fiscal 2009 state budget is supposed to provide the county with $182.7 million in education funding.
However, Virginia is facing a shortfall of $2.5 billion for the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years.
Supervisors also want the General Assembly to change the state statute to protect some records from Freedom of Information Act requests. Last year, a resident filed a lawsuit related to a FOIA request for the personal e-mails of Chairman Scott York, I-At Large, Lori Waters, R-Broad Run, and Jim Burton, I-Blue Ridge.
Supervisor Stevens Miller, D-Dulles, said he wants to be protected from FOIA requests that otherwise would be protected by the Fourth Amendment’s rights against unreasonable search and seizure.
“It seems to me the Constitution supersedes the FOIA statute,” he said.
“There’s still questions that linger on what are our records [that are] subject to FOIA,” said Waters. “None of us had ever thought [personal e-mails] were subject to FOIA because they didn’t pertain to public business.”
