Loudoun County, facing a projected shortfall of nearly $200 million in fiscal 2010, will attempt to gain authority from the General Assembly to create taxes to diversify its revenue base.
Supervisors passed the recommendation 7-1-1 Wednesday, with Eugene Delgaudio, R-Sterling, opposed and Scott York, independent-at large, absent. Some, though, were skeptical about the likelihood that the legislature would grant such authority.
Under Virginia law, cities and towns are authorized by the state to institute taxes, while counties are not. The state operates under an interpretation of “Dillon’s Rule,” named after a 19th-century Iowa judge, under which municipal or local powers are subject to state authority.
Supervisor Stevens Miller, D-Dulles, compared the request with his recommending that constituents speak at public hearings even if supervisors don’t act on their requests.
“If that’s valid logic here, it’s valid logic for the General Assembly,” he said.
Then he struck a more pessimistic tone.
“This is the most inertial House of Delegates I have ever seen,” he said. “They’re not going to do it, and we know, but we have a right to this authority, we need it, and we should never stop asking for it,” he said.
Jim Burton, I-Blue Ridge, though, said that sending such a recommendation to Richmond would be “a reminder to the General Assembly that they didn’t do their job — they have not been, in my opinion, stepping up to the plate as they should have in recent years.”
He said that given the “dire” economic situations facing both the county and the state, local government should have the authority to make such decisions.
Lori Waters, R-Broad Run, lobbied to include language in the recommendation stressing the county’s need to diversify its revenue system, given that residents in different districts are not equally affected by real estate taxes because of the volatile housing market. The county relies on property taxes for more than two-thirds of its revenue.
“The idiot notion” that a person pays taxes based on what he owns, and not on what he earns, is “fundamentally unfair,” said Miller, adding that supervisors need to be prepared to answer the question of who will bear the tax burden should the request be approved.
