If you look at the pattern whereby Blacksburg and Christiansburg have used boundary line adjustments or annexation, you will see one clear reason why County taxes had to be increased. Christiansburg has taken over most of the interstate junctions where lodging and restaurants are likely to be built (and have been built).
Looking at the
Montgomery County website, Table 7: Food and Beverage/License Tax 2007 Rate per $100.00 of Gross Receipts the following information is found:
Jurisdiction
|
Meals Tax |
Transient Occupancy Tax |
Montgomery County
|
$4 per $100
|
$2 per $100
|
| Blacksburg |
$5 per $100
|
$7 per $100
|
| Christiansburg |
$6 per $100
|
$7 per $100
|
To see what this really means and why annexation and boundary line adjustments have contributed to the County's need to raise property taxes, I will take a hypothetical situation involving a fictitious interchange on I81 that is currently part of Montgomery County but later becomes annexed by Christiansburg. I will assume that the intersection contains a fast food restaurant that nets $1.5 million per year and a chain hotel that does the same net of $1.5 million.
Now, we need to redo our table to show what each of the jurisdictions would get in tax revenue on the money earned by the fast food restaurant and chain hotel:
Jurisdiction
|
Meals Tax |
Transient Occupancy Tax |
Montgomery County
|
$60,000
|
$30,000
|
| Blacksburg |
$75,000
|
$105,000
|
| Christiansburg |
$90,000
|
$105,000
|
If Christiansburg chooses to annex or do a boundary line adjustment on the property in question, guess what happens to that revenue for Montgomery County. It vanishes, only to reappear in the coffers of the Town.
At this time, there are only two major interchanges left in Montgomery County that have not been digested by Christiansburg. This is a great way for Towns to keep down the taxes of citizens within the Town, but it is at a cost to taxpayers throughout the county. Given that Montgomery County foots the bill for the public schools and other services (between 67.5 and 90% of the County's revenues depending upon which focus you take when looking at the
Montgomery County Budget - a wonderful, informative document), the costs of which are unlikely to decrease, the loss of revenue must be made up for by other means. Hence, increased property taxes. If you want to know specifically where that money goes,
how about 2.5 cents to school operation and 4 cents to the building of new schools. For anyone who was at the Town Council Meeting last night and heard about an arrangement made between Christiansburg and the County to share tax revenues on and meals or lodging facilities to be developed on property recently 'boundary-line adjusted' into the Town of Christiansburg, this is why that is occurring.
The County cannot continue to lose revenue sources to the Towns. That revenue needs to be shared in order to minimize future increases in property taxes.