by James A. Bacon
It’s all for the children. It’s always for the children!
Here’s how Virgil Hazelett, former Henrico County administrator, justified yesterday slapping a 4% meals tax on Henrico families, most of whom have seen a steady erosion of their take-home income over the past several years thanks to a sluggish economy and a panoply of new state and federal taxes:
I’m here today in support of Henrico’s children and Henrico’s schools, to maintain the excellence we all expect from our students and the successes for our children that they deserve. A meals tax is a small price to pay…. I believe that the citizens of this county will not fail us and the future of the educational system and of the county.
As bad as it was, that treacly nonsense was exceeded by Tammy Gartrell, president of the Henrico County Council of PTAs, who said, “The meals tax will be only pennies to us when we go out to eat. But all those pennies add up to so much for our children.”
This is some of the most cynical posturing I have ever seen in Virginia politics. Two points. First, there is no way to guarantee the money will always go towards education. Second, the real beneficiaries aren’t teachers and the little children, they are the government programs and policies that county officials are protecting from cuts or alteration in lieu of raising taxes.
To the first point: Current County Manager John Vithoulkas spoke yesterday of putting the money in a “lockbox.” That is farcical. There is no way under Virginia’s Constitution to create a lockbox.
Vithoulkas said that after the meals tax passes, the board of supervisors can pass an ordinance spelling out that the new tax revenue will go to the schools. Reporter Graham Moomaw had the wits about him to ask how that would work. The fact is, under the Virginia Constitution, no board can bind a future board to its decisions; any ordinance can be amended or repealed. Vithoulkas’ lame response: “They would have to unwind the ordinance and hold a public hearing. … When we say we’re going to do something, we do it.”
In other words, the lockbox is as safe as Fort Knox — until this board of supervisors or some future board decides to unlock it.
In any case, Sidney Gunst, the real estate developer who has led the opposition to the meals tax, termed the lockbox an illusion. “Henrico County has guaranteed nothing, whether there is an ordinance or not. The only number that means anything is the overall school budget — and that’s what the board will still vote on every year. Annually, the school budget can go up or down.”
Henrico does need to allocate more money to schools in order to cover an estimated $10 million next year in additional teacher pension payments. (Henrico also needs another $4.5 million to cover pension payments for non-governmental employees.) Of course, the county must honor its pension obligations to the teachers. But please spare us the rhetoric that it’s all for the sweet little children.
To the second point: The real beneficiaries of the tax are those governmental programs that the Board of Supervisors chooses to maintain instead of cutting them and using the savings to pay for teacher pensions. Just to pick some obvious examples: Why does the county need a publicly owned golf course? Why does the county fund programming for the Henrico public access channel? Why doesn’t the county charge insurance companies for county-provided ambulance service?
If county officials and their pet-sheep allies in the PTA were being honest, they would level with Henrico voters: We want to tax your food so we can keep the public golf course, put obscure documentaries on public-access TV and let insurance companies off the hook for ambulance rides. That’s the real truth. Sadly, Henrico’s elected officials are doing everything they can to hide it.
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