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General Assembly
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The General Assembly has recessed without doing major harm to the county.
We’re still waiting for relief from a formula for i computing the county’s ability to pay for such services as education that puts heavy emphasis on land values, without taking into account land use, and that apparently uses mean income, rather than median income, for part of the formula. Since the county cannot tax income, mean income is a meaningless number, and median income would more accurately predict the ability of the citizens to pay real estate taxes.
We also await a more sensible formula for computing the cost of meeting the state’s “Standards of Quality” for education, one that more accurately reflects the true costs. The state uses that formula to arrive at its share for school costs. When the formula doesn’t reflect true costs, county taxpayers end up picking up 100 percent of the costs not included in the formula.
We can understand the governor’s enthusiasm for landing the Disney America theme park in Prince William County and the reluctance of the legislature to risk losing that development.
However, the state’s generosity to the Disney Company feels unfair to other businesses, particularly to King’s Dominion, which invested heavily in roads to provide access to that park. It seems especially unfair because King’s Dominion is likely to lose business to the Disney theme park.
We also understand the intent of having a sales tax that taxes goods but not services. However, the results of that tax seem unnecessarily perverse when groceries are taxed but not amusement park admissions.
96.9%