CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — Chesterfield County voters will decide in November whether to raise the county's sales tax from 6% to 7% to fund school construction and major maintenance projects.
The referendum is set for Nov. 3. If approved, the 1% increase would generate up to $70 million a year and expire after 20 years. The increase would not apply to groceries or personal hygiene products.
Without the increase, the county has acknowledged some projects could be more than a decade away from completion.
I took questions from Chesterfield residents straight to the county ahead of the vote.
One resident asked what alternatives the county formally evaluated before settling on the 1% sales tax increase. Interim County Administrator Matt Harris said the alternative is to stick with the county's existing capital improvement plan — even if that means waiting years longer for some projects.
"These are already identified projects...that timetable and those projects are already laid out...if this isn't approved, what happens and they stay on the timetable that they're on now, which in some cases could be the better part of a decade before these facilities are fully designed and open," Harris said.
I also asked how much projected revenue from approved data centers was included in the analysis supporting the referendum. Harris said none of that revenue was factored into the plan.
"We don't plan in from just from the financial planning perspective for any of those perspective revenues. Some of those projects that are being discussed out there are a decade or more away," Harris said.
On the question of property taxes, the county previously said the Board of Supervisors would consider offsetting the sales tax increase by lowering the property tax rate by 10 cents and the real estate tax rate by 2 cents. Harris promised the reductions would happen.
"These are all really crucially important projects that have been previously identified and discussed with the community and so we thought it was important enough to fast-track them plus with the opportunity to deal with the major maintenance topic which is something we've been wrestling with for a long time...reduce some of our key tax rates, you know, those three things together, we thought it was worthwhile to bring this before the voters," Harris said.
If voters approve the referendum, the county is proposing to use the funds to:
- Replace Midlothian Middle School with a modern facility
- Expand Thomas Dale High School to create one main campus
- Build a new Dale Elementary School, adding 150 pre-K spots and eliminating 60 classroom trailers
- Complete the Matoaca Middle School replacement
- Build a new elementary school serving the Midlothian and Clover Hill districts
- Construct a new gym at L.C. Byrd High School
- Enhance the county's major maintenance program
Chesterfield County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. John Murray said the funding would make a significant impact on long-deferred maintenance needs.
"Just to kind of paint a broader picture here, we could use very easily $80 million a year for major maintenance. This would infuse us with about $40 million to accomplish a lot of significant projects and work year over year," Murray said.
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