The Gloucester County Board of Supervisors voted by a 5-2 margin Tuesday evening to advertise the real estate tax rate at $0.637 per $100 of assessed value, an increase of $0.023, and the personal property levy at $3.15 per $100 of assessed value, a five-cent increase, for fiscal year 2027.
Supervisors also voted to advertise a cigarette tax at the maximum rate, which would be 40 cents per pack. Gloucester County currently does not have a cigarette tax. Additionally, the board voted to advertise a 2 percent increase in the meals tax rate.
These advertised rates reflect the maximum amount of increase the board can implement. The board can choose to lower the rates before the adoption of its final budget.
“What you advertise is your max,” explained County Attorney Ted Wilmot.
The FY27 budget requests total more $96 million with revenues projected to reach $89.5 million without the additional proposed rate increases, creating an operating gap of $6.5 million.
“The potential revenues are greater than the gap,” said County Administrator Carol Steele. The advertised rates will be adjusted as the board balances the budget between expenditure cuts and revenue decisions.
A public hearing will be held on the advertised rates on April 13 in the T.C. Walker Education Center auditorium, beginning at 6 p.m. The board approved the advertised tax levies by a vote of 5-2, with chair Ashley Chriscoe and member Nick Bonniville dissenting.
Joint meeting
The Gloucester County School Board and Board of Supervisors held a joint meeting in the T.C. Walker Education Center auditorium Tuesday evening to discuss the school board’s proposed budget of $84,311,571. The school board is experiencing a budget gap of $3,731,433.
“It appears, once again, that both boards are over budget,” said Larry Cohen of the York District during public comment. He suggested ways that the boards could save funds, including recruiting homeschooling students back to the public school system, delaying low-priority projects, and doing away with the school district’s school resource officer program since the Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office has a quick response time.
Much of the conversation centered around the need to improve the school division’s career and technical education programming. Both school board and board of supervisors’ members expressed the desire for a specific CTE facility for local students, much like New Horizons in Newport News.
According to superintendent of schools Dr. Anthony Vladu, 30 percent of Gloucester High School graduates go straight to the workforce. Additional opportunities for students to take CTE courses while they are still in high school will help with their career readiness. These courses would also allow students to stay local and not have to commute to meet their CTE goals.
School board member Carlton Drew also suggested a program in which students would have to complete a CTE course to graduate from high school as is required by other Virginia school divisions.
“We’re not done growing,” said school board member Troy Andersen about CTE. “Our focus is college or career ready.”
The state budget process is still ongoing and the Virginia General Assembly is expected to convene for a special session on April 23. Additional dollars for public schools could still be allocated by the state for FY27.