By Adam Pagnucco.
While Montgomery County is increasing property taxes, it’s worth noting that three of our principal competitors have cut property taxes this year. At the same time, they are also increasing school funding.
Fairfax County
Even though Fairfax’s county executive (which is an appointed manager position) did not recommend a tax cut, the county’s Board of Supervisors chose to cut its real property tax rate from $1.11 per $100 of assessed value to $1.095. This is the third cut in three years.
Loudoun County
Loudoun cut its real property tax rate by 1.5 cents to 87.5 cents per $100 in assessed value. This follows property tax rate cuts of 2 pennies in 2017, 4 pennies in 2018, 4 pennies in 2019, 1 penny in 2020, 5.5 pennies in 2021 and 9 pennies in 2022.
Prince William County
Prince William cut its real property tax rate by 6.4 cents to 96.6 cents per $100 in assessed value. This follows cuts of 1 penny two years ago and 8.5 pennies last year.
Despite the rate cuts, all three have increased funding for schools. Fairfax’s school funding increase this year was $144 million, Loudoun’s was $72 million and Prince William’s was $91 million. The latter amount was a 12.7% increase, which was larger than the 12.1% local increase recommended by County Executive Marc Elrich for MCPS.
Consider these two facts.
Prince William cut its property tax by 6.4 cents and still gave a larger percentage increase to its schools than Elrich wanted to give to MCPS despite the fact that Elrich wanted a 10 cent tax increase.
Fairfax cut its property tax rate by 1.5 cents and gave its schools an increase of $144 million in local dollars. Montgomery raised its property tax rate by 4.7 cents and gave its schools an increase of $156 million in local dollars.
Let that sink in, folks.
One more thing. The Northern Virginia governments are not dominated by Alabama-style anti-government politicians. Democrats have board majorities of 9-1 in Fairfax, 6-3 in Loudoun and 5-3 in Prince William. That’s right, these are Democrats who have found a way to cut tax rates and substantially increase school funding.
How can they make the numbers work? The answer is that they have generally strong economies. In my recent series on local economies, Loudoun and Prince William were among the leaders on most economic measures. Fairfax was a leader in average wages and growth in real GDP and real GDP per capita. These counties and others in Northern Virginia have figured out that economic competitiveness enables growth in the tax base that pays the bills, including school funding.
Will MoCo leaders ever learn this lesson?