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counted rate.
And we have the State Department of Taxation's property tax division director's report that the new assessments — instead of being 100 percent of fair market value — run approximately 70 percent of that value based on actual sales. Take 70 percent of the current tax rate and we get about 22 cents, a figure we think is roughly equivalent to the county’s true effective tax rate. Compare that to the true effective rate for I960 and it’s a 50 percent decrease. Or use 1982-82’s actual rate for comparison’s sake and the decrease in tax rate since I960 is still almost 20 percent.
Our supervisors have worked some powerful magic over the last decade or so, bringing taxes down in Rappahannock while taxes everywhere else in the country have skyrocketed. It couldn’t go on forever.
And it isn’t, for 1982, our local government must not only come up with the money for a remodeled jail, a new central office bus shop, and continued county services, it must also find a way to bring the surplus back up to the safe $200,000 minimum that experience has shown is necessary, the only answer is a tax increase— maybe an increase that falls into the category of staggering.
So Supervisor Estes is probably right when he maintains that we can’t afford to start another building project, this year even one as deserving as the long delayed high school expansion.
But at the same time, supervisors Estes, Latham and Hubert Gilkey are on record as supporting some type of expansion that will fulfill the pressing need for additional space at the high school. We urge them to reaffirm that support bv leaving $2,000 in the proposed school budget under capital outlay. According to the school board chairman, that amount is enough for an estimate from an architect on-what the proposed expansion will cost. . With that figure, Rappahannock can get in line for a literary fund loan for construction. Then, when the budget crunch passes and prior commitments to other construction projects have been honored, we’ll be ready at last to do something about the lack of adequate space for the educational programs at Rappahannock County High School.
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