Growls

Near election time whenever members of the General Assembly are up for reelection, opposition candidates like to point out how taxpayers in Northern Virginians shovel more money to Richmond than we receive back. Earlier this year, Jim Bacon of Bacon’s Rebellion pointed out just how ridiculous that process really is. Bacon writes:

“As I've often observed before, this rebenchmarking process represents one of the greatest inter-regional transfers of wealth in the state. By a complicated process, it punishes municipalities that choose to spend more local tax dollars on tax education. Each time the SOLs are rebenchmarked, the more dramatic the redistribution gets. Accordingly, it is instructive to see what happened when the SOLs were last rebenchmarked, in 2006. Many Virginia cities and counties enjoyed such a windfall of state revenue that they could cut their contributions of local tax dollars.”

Add in the 2004 tax increase brought to taxpayers by Gov. Mark Warner (D) and Sen. John Chichester (R), and the result might cause anyone to rant. Using numbers compiled by Chris Braunlich (requires Adobe), a resident of Fairfax County and regular contributor to Bacon’s Rebellion, Jim Bacon points out that some localities were able to reduce their own spending “for the children” even though the tax increase was “sold” on the basis of “helping the children:”

• City of Lexington - “received $1,139 in additional state funds per pupil -- and cut their own contribution by $446 per pupil.”

• City of Covington - “received $796 per pupil more from the state, and cut its local contribution by $644.”

• Henrico County -- “an affluent suburban jurisdiction, received $423 more per pupil and cut its local contribution by $53.”

• Chesterfield County - “the fourth most populous jurisdiction in Virginia, received $415 more per pupil and cut its own contribution by $239.”

In cconclusion, Jim writes:

“If Northern Virginia taxpayers want to know how they're getting shafted in Richmond, this is where they ought to be looking. As a Henrico resident, I'm a beneficiary of the funding formula. But that doesn't make it right. This formula is broken.”

In February, we growled that Arlington’s public schools provided only average results at a very extraordinary price. That’s compounded now by learning the funding formula is a scheme that transfers more of the wealth of Northern Virginians to other regions of the state. Can the Arlington members of the General Assembly spell accountability?