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Home – Virginia – Bid to Raise Sales Taxes in Virginia Raises Questions

Bid to Raise Sales Taxes in Virginia Raises Questions

Thirty-five percent of Virginia’s municipal governments will be holding a referendum this November on whether to add a 1% sales tax to any transactions that take place in their county or city.

The General Assembly approved amendments to Sections 58.1-605.1 and 58.1-606.1 to allow all Virginia cities and counties to put forth a referendum to their voters to give the locality the power to impose an additional 1% sales and use tax in the locality, provided the revenues from the additional tax are used only for school capital projects.

These are sadly some of the least transparent segments of municipal government spending. Allocations are often requested late in school board meetings, with attendance ranging from zero to five citizens, and they generally go along something like this:

“Madam Chair, the last agenda item is a $100,000 appropriation for maintenance operations at ‘Joe Thomas Middle School’ for upgrades required by the latest inspections by the school administrator.”

At this point, the school board will generally vote unanimously to fund the allocation and adjourn. No debate, no discussion, no school board members trying to find out who is going to receive the $100,000. Nothing.

Research done by the Cicero Institute found that “public school capital budgets are not universally transparent.” That’s gently put, and mostly based on the fact that they are posted online with varying degrees of clarity. Also, the calls to each school board meeting are often vague regarding how the bidding process for these projects was........

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